Daqman maintained his winner-a-day reputation yesterday with the gambled-on Xinji (won 5-2 at Dundalk), his seventh winning December bet.
The best of the Wincanton card today should carry a warning: these are trial races (2.10 and 3.40) and you could burn a hole in your pocket. But, if you think picking winners is hard, imagine the hole is already there - and the anxiety tenfold – as an owner who has paid big money in the hope that the horse is good enough for Cheltenham.
It’s 10 years since one of Henrietta Knight’s first big-race scorers, Karshi, won the 1997 World Hurdle for Lord Sam Vestey.
His lordship’s Jimboreal (2.10 Wincanton) looked good value at 9.1 on the Daq this morning now that Henrietta is back in form with three winners in the last fortnight.
Mayeul has no chance, barring accidents; I simply won’t have a nine-year-old novice chaser (Gods Token); and Jimboreal has already finished well ahead of the likely favourite Pur de Sivola over hurdles. But Sobers is a real threat; he’s always looked the chasing type.
And I’m impressed that his handler, Nicky Gifford, has booked local jock, Joe Tizzard, who lives so close he could walk to work and knows the Wincanton track like his own front garden, having ridden many a winner there for father Colin and for Paul Nicholls.
Sobers won first time for Gifford when owner Paul “Shotgun Willy” Beck moved a batch of horses from Richard Guest. Good shot, Nicky!
The hurdles trial is equally fascinating, featuring as it does the first appearance over the sticks of Ashkazar, a Group performer on the Flat, who runs for the Pipes’ major patron, David Johnson.
But rival owner Terry Warner, hoping to replace his amazing pair Detroit City and Rooster Booster has a high opinion of Emerald Wilderness (3.40 Wincanton); so has trainer Alan King and I wasn’t surprised when ‘Wilderness’ moved in to challenge Ashkazar for favouritism on the Daq.
I took bits about Conkering (2.30 Leicester) this morning - some 12.5 and 10.5 on the Daq - as yet another big-name owner, J P McManus, trials a youngster, this one with the trainer, James Fanshawe, who won the race last year.
They are up against it with Ascot runner-up Blue Bajan in the race; he’s very short as I write, but I will put him in doubles so that he is running for me, too.
McManus and his retained man, a certain A P McCoy, have a more obvious chance with Abutilon (2.0) who likes top of the ground; the forecast light rain will probably change the good-to-firm chase-course forecast but not enough, I think, to abate or abut the chances of this Brendan Powell youngster (one of the runners, Newick Park, is three times his age!)
Last word about owners: have you noticed that, on a Wincanton day, the Wincanton Race Club is at Leicester to see their I’m A Legend (3.30) run from out of the handicap?
Oh you did! Then it might have been you who took the 170.0 on the Daq this morning. Somehow, despite the undoubted generosity of this Daq trader, I don’t think you’ll be buying a horse for Cheltenham after the race. But keep your Daq up; you never know your luck!
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BET 3pts win SOBERS and 1pt win JIMBOREAL (2.10 Wincanton)
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BET 6pts win ABUTILON (2.0 Leicester)
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BET 2pts win double ABUTILON (2.0 Leicester) with BLUE BAJAN (2.30 Leicester)
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BET 1pt win CONKERING (2.30 Leicester)
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BET 4pts win EMERALD WILDERNESS (3.40 Wincanton)
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