DAQMAN on Thursday

Thursday 9 October THE GOOD OLD DAYS? What was it really like for the punter in the time of Arkle and Sea Bird? Daqman is reminiscing about the Sixties with four days to go to the first birthday of his column. But he also fancies his chances today of a hot yankee of winners including a two-year-old  filly whose trainer says she could have won the Guineas this year and a a juvenile colt regarded as the North’s best chance of a Derby winner since the war. EIGHT MORE WINS by the end of the week would chalk up a total of 800 to celebrate the Daqman anniversary. TWELVE MORE WINS would break his current record of a set century in 32 days. Most of my tales of the turf today are unimaginable in these high-tech times but, if you are sitting comfortably, I will wind back the clock. That is literally what happened in the small town where I was born (wot, no plaque?). But I’ll begin at the beginning. Betting shops were first licensed in May, 1961, and within six months there were 10,000 of them, including many run by the old illegal bookies and their street-corner collectors, called ‘runners’. They may have been street-wise but the new shops were a different kind of business and an easy target for the local villain. Many of them were what you might call basic: just bare boards with a desk, a phone, and a cash-box, and with Sporting Life racecards pinned to the walls. There was no TV, no commentary and, in a small independent shop, no ‘blower’ to the track, in fact no link whatsoever with the outside world except an ordinary dial telephone. My home-town bookie took the bets his punters pencilled on bits of scrap paper and – keeping an eye on the clock on the wall – called a halt near the advertised ‘off’ time, and then, a few minutes later, rang one of the city firms he used for laying off, and asked for the 1-2-3 and SP. Eazy-peazy, wasn’t it, to find a way into the premises one morning and turn back the hands of the clock 10 minutes, so that all the afternoon racing ‘ran’ that much later. Outside the shop, an accomplice in one of those red post-office boxes rang for each result and signaled the number of the winner to his mate who stepped forward to bet with the shop’s clock still showing a pre-post time. But for their greed – they backed 18 winners in four days and no losers - they might have got away with it longer than they did. Who else could have picked the Derby winner in those first few weeks of betting shops?  Psidium, trained by Harry Wragg, won at 66-1, even now the longest price for 95 years. So, in racing terms, my home town is famous for one of the first betting-shop scams on record. Maybe I can manage without that plaque, after all. But bigger, more organized ‘coups’ happened in the Sixties by cutting the ‘blower’ (racecourse connection) so that major firms could not lay off their money, and a horse would start a big price when it should have been a hot favourite. Imagine, say, Pasternak’s Cambridgeshire (1997): a gamble estimated at a £5million pay-out but what would it have been had no money got back to the track and an SP of 20-1 (instead of 4-1) been returned? The Cambridgeshire result in that first year of betting shops – a dead heat – would not have happened today; modern technology would have found a winner. The man who took advantage of poor technology, but in an entirely legal way, was professional punter Alex Bird: photo-finish results took so long to call that there was betting in the ring on the probable outcome for several long, nerve-wracking minutes. Bookies had ‘spotters’ standing on the line and in the stands and relied on them to ‘call it’: but Bird realized that their eyes often deceived them, that the human brain compensates for the horse on the far side of a finish, unable precisely to correlate them in one field of vision. Bird, training himself in a special viewing technique, bided his time and bet in huge sums when he thought the bookies’ spies had got it wrong. He made an absolute fortune. The Cesarewitch that year of 1961 went to Avons Pride, one of two wins in four seasons for Major Dick Hern, who would later become The Queen’s trainer after Cecil Boyd Rochfort and Noel Murless. The first Grand National in the shops was won in 1962 by Fred Winter on Kilmore, a magnificent Irish purchase by Bob McCreery for trainer Ryan Price. Kilmore may be forgotten but McCreery, Price and Winter are all remembered as masters of their art. Arkle was about to enter the steeplechase arena and become so dominant that, in 1964, handicappers (for the Irish National) had to draw up two sets of weights: one if Arkle ran, one if he didn’t. He did run, with two stone more than any other rival. And he won. Just one year later, and Sea Bird 11 took the Epsom Derby and then toyed with what many still say was the finest Arc field ever assembled at Longchamp. Didn’t it all happen in the Sixties! The Arc brings me neatly back to current debate, though not to argue whether Sea Bird was better than Zarkava but just to illustrate how far we’ve moved on in 40 years from the bookie with his clock on the wall in that you can watch Sea Bird, and nine other Arc winners, on YouTube and judge for yourself. My last look back is to unbeaten Queen’s Logic: Queen Mary, Lowther, Cheveley Park, Fred Darling.. she won them all! And word has it that her daughter, Dunes Queen (1.40 Newbury) is following in her hoofprints. Some of you already know what’s afoot: you made her 2.5 on Betdaq this morning. She has worked impressively with Listed and Group-3 performer, Sweet Lily, swinging on the bit and cantering all over her, having earlier accounted for Silver Touch and, on another occasion, Cherry Hinton winner, Please Sing. They’ve run out of opposition at home, so here she is on the racecourse. Trainer Mick Channon was quoted in the Spring as saying: ‘She could win the Guineas for me this year if I wanted her to.’ Channon, back home after his accident, obviously thought he’d cheer himself up today: he also sends out his best juvenile colt, Fantastic Dubai (2.10) but, this time, Betdaq punters are not so sure; the layers are still waving 4.0 as bait as I write, relying on the experience of Film Set. But, like Dunes Queen with the fillies, this half-brother to St James’s Palace Stakes winner Zafeen is in a league of his own with the colts at home; a few weeks ago, he brushed aside Orizaba and, to make sure there is no excuse today, he’s pinged through a stalls test at home and, since he’s American-bred, he worked on the slow gallop on Friday and seems to relish soft ground. At 2.40, Border Patrol, Sopranist and, of course, Palavicini have claims, but I shall have a pound on Conclusive at 18.5 on Betdaq: out of a Robert Papin winner, has needed time to grow as a Selkirk; by the same token, he should love the easy surface. Jukebox Jury, Shaweel, Quai D’Orsay, Mastery and Saint Arch have all impressed from a Mark Johnston string brimming with two-year-old talent but my man says: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” He is referring to Roman Republic (3.50), entered in the Racing Post Trophy and already considered a rare Derby hope for the North: it hasn’t been won from North of Newmarket since Dante in 1945. Gibb River (saver), whose dam is a half-sister to Oaks winner Love Divine, may test the Johnston stable’s enthusiasm today. If Newbury is a nursery for future Flat stars, Wincanton’s opener should yield a hatful of hurdles winners: Art Trend (2.20) knows his stuff, Cosmea won twice in the summer for last year’s winning trainer, Alan King, and Nampour (from the Arc-winning stable) looks a nice buy for Terry Warner. Paul Nicholls usually has them ready first time for his home track. At Southwell, Barry Geraghty has been booked for Wallace Monument (5.15), which I’m told is the first of the usual hearty crop of bumper winners for Nicky Henderson in the months ahead.
TODAY'S BETS
BANKER 10pts win DUNES QUEEN (1.40 Newbury) EACH-WAY BANKER 5pts win and place FANTASTIC DUBAI (2.10 Newbury) BET 6pts win ART TREND (2.20 Wincanton) BET 1pt win and place CONCLUSIVE (2.40 Newbury) BET 8pts win ROMAN REPUBLIC and 2pts win GIBB RIVER (3.50 Newbury) BET 8pts win WALLACE MONUMENT (5.15 Southwell) DAQ MULTIPLES: Dunes Queen, Fantastic Dubai, Roman Republic and Wallace Monument, charged to the account as 1pt win doubles.
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