Tuesday 26 April
DAQMAN
THE FORGOTTEN HORSES OF THE GUINEAS: Daqman has 20.0 Pathfork, second favourite for Saturday’s 2,000 Guineas. That puts him in a value position but what are the dangers to Pathfork and the favourite, Frankel. Today he looks for the best outsider among the ‘forgotten’ horses.
ABC BIG-RACE GUIDES: Look out on Thursday and Friday for his unique ABC guides to all the runners in the 1,000 and the 2,000 Guineas.
LAY AFTER LAY FOR DAQMAN: Daqman’s lays sequence continued yesterday when another market leader bit the dust: Carrie’s Magic (3rd 3-1 favourite). There’s another one today.
They’re the forgotten horses of the 2,000 Guineas. With the market one-sided for Frankel, there is stunning value to be had on Betdaq about one colt with the form to beat them all and another that’s dark but not friendless. Prices quoted are at time of writing this morning.
CASAMENTO (14-1 and 16-1 with bookmakers but 23.0 on Betdaq) This colt is more or less the equal of Pathfork on form and even better than that, according to his former trainer.
It was always on the cards that Godolphin would want him if he shaped up, since his sire, Shamardal, was trained for them by Saeed Bin Suroor to win the French Guineas and Chantilly Derby.
Shape up he certainly did, with his two-year-old-season trainer, Mick Halford, convinced he would still be unbeaten had he been experienced enough when he took on Pathfork in the National Stakes at The Curragh.
Casamento had won on the debut on fast ground but was still ‘a big raw colt’, trying to make all against Pathfork, who had two wins under his belt including the Curragh Futurity over Glor Na Mara and Samuel Morse, who were also in the National Stakes field.
Joining them in the line-up was Zoffany, who had set up a hat-trick of home wins, his only defeat in six starts being sixth in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Pathfork went to the front just over two furlongs out on a soft surface for the National Stakes but Casamento came back at him and was closing on the winner with every stride towards the finish.
The pair had drawn clear, with Zoffany five lengths back, followed closely by Samuel Morse but with Glor Na Mara now another five-and-a-half-lengths in arrears.
So it was that the Marble Hill winner, Samuel Morse, was further behind Pathfork than in the Futurity, and Zoffany improved on his Phoenix Stakes form with Glor Na Mara but finished a remote third. The implication was that the front two had improved no end.
That was Pathfork’s last race of the season but Casamento went on to win the Racing Post Trophy – Native Khan fourth – in the footsteps of St Nicholas Abbey, who had then become all the rage for the 2009 Guineas and Derby.
That would mean Casamento topping the markets for this year’s Classics, then? Not a bit of it. He’s nearly three times Pathfork’s price for the Guineas and is quoted in the Derby betting behind Seville, whom he beat threeparts of a length into second in that Racing Post Trophy.
So Casamento hasn’t trained on: is that it? No, that’s not it, if the Derby market can be believed; for, although he’s behind Seville in the betting, he’s prominent at 10-1 and 12-1.
So maybe his stable is badly out of form? That’s another ‘no.’ Mahmood Al Zarooni, who took over from Mick Halford, staged an impressive start to the season, with six winners from 11 runners between April 13 and 24.
No, the answer seems to be that Casamento is reckoned a Derby horse. Yet past markets would have considered his two-year-old form made him favourite for the Guineas, and his sire was capable of winning both Guineas and Derby, albeit in France.
FURY (14-1 and 16-1 with bookmakers but 24.0 on Betdaq): My editor says Fury is hardly a ‘forgotten horse’, since he’s raced only twice and is officially rated just 103 against Frankel’s 126.
But he’s certainly forgotten by punters in this Guineas market, and perhaps they have forgotten that his trainer, William Haggas, produced Shaamit in similar circumstances to win the Derby first time out in 1996.
Shammit, too, had run just twice, in fact in class 4 and 5 maidens, compared with Fury’s class-2 conditions race win in the Tattersalls Millions Trophy last October. The second and third had already won two each, the third, Formosina, having run Samuel Morse to a short-head at The Curragh.
Fourth, fifth and sixth were Measuring Time, Questioning and Auld Burns, who filled the first three in another Tattersalls Millions at Newmarket earlier this month, with Measuring Time and Auld Burns subsequently second and third in the Sandown Classic Trial on Saturday.
Fury is potentially in the Classic swim, if needing to improve. Look back, you’ll see that I put him in my horses-to-follow list (the trainer thinks he’s a Jersey Stakes horse) and he seems certain to repay your interest through the season.
But the verdict on the Guineas has to be that Casamento is wrongly priced today for the first colts’ Classic and, with my 20.0 Pathfork now in to 9.2, the book of offers on Betdaq is underround for me, and I can afford a supplementary entry into my betting log: Casamento at 23.0.
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 6.8pts win MOONE’S MY NAME (2.40 Yarmouth)
BET 7.4pts win MISS MIRACLE (3.50 Exeter)
BET 3.2pts win MATA KERANJANG and 2.7pts win (saver) ASRAAB (4.10 Yarmouth)
LAY to win 10pts MOTIRANI and BET 10pts win CORR POINT (5.10 Yarmouth)
BET 2.4pts win and place COOL BARANCA (6.10 Sedgefield)
ANTE-POST: BET 1.3pts win CASAMENTO at 23.0 (2,000 Guineas, Newmarket, Saturday).
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