DAQMAN on Monday

Monday 15 March DAQMAN  DAQMAN KING OF CHELTENHAM: Starting tomorrow, the greatest jumps-racing show on earth gives every punter a jackpot chance of finding the Cheltenham champions at value Betdaq offers. And the man to find them for you is Daqman. UNBEATEN LAYS SEQUENCE: Daqman, who’s record sequence of lays is 16 in a row, has 100% record at the last two Cheltenham Festivals. He’s currently in form with three on the trot. 22 FESTIVAL WINS IN 2009:  Last year he capped an amazing 22 winning bets at the Festival with two big winners on the Saturday and took his total profits by the end of the week to more than 90 points. THE BEST RACES TO BET IN: Today he analyses past Cheltenham results and brings you the ‘do’ and the ‘don’t’ rules of the meeting, with who’ll win and who won’t, and your guide to the best races to bet in. Back-And Lay: Start using all the Betdaq facilities from day one. In tomorrow’s Supreme Novices Hurdle, find a keen sort that won last time out. You need some big offers so you can back it to lay during the race, hoping it hangs on until the top of the hill to force a wide odds margin between the bets so that you make a profit whether the horse wins or loses. Follow the In-Running Guides on the Betdaq Extra home page and my daily back-and-lay suggestions. Champion Stats Busters: The stats I am listing here generally hold good; only real champions can beat the stats. Kauto Star, for instance, as the first horse to regain the Gold Cup, or Master Minded, as the first five-year-old winner of the Champion Chase.  The Main Course: Cheltenham is a law unto itself; ability on the course is the main asset of any contender. Some 40% of all Festival winners had already been placed at previous festivals on the course; 52% had been placed at one or other Cheltenham meeting in the previous three seasons. Around 80% of Champion Hurdle winners had already won at a Cheltenham meeting and 80% of Champion Chase winners had been placed at the festival before. Four-Day Diet Or One Big Feast: Unless you are determined on one big hit, don’t forget there are four betting days. Just as you have to judge the shape of a race, you have to look at the overall meeting and decide: where do I do best and what looks like a race to get involved in? Then decide how to spread your bank over the meeting. Favourites Or Outsiders: Only two races out of 25 were won by the favourite in wet conditions in 2008 but, on good to soft, two had already won in 2009 by the end of the opening day; there were three in a row on the second day but only Kauto Star beat the layers after that. With an overall favourites’ strike rate of only around 16%, better a layer than a backer be. The Champion Hurdle used to be a top race for favourites but four of the last six winners have started 33-1, 22-1, 16-1 and 10-1 with backers determined to stick to the older, tried performers to their cost.  Best race for favourites is the Champion Chase; it goes to horses under 5-1 some 90% of the time. The Coral Cup and the National Hunt Chase are best for outsiders. Form Horses Are Going To Win: There are fewer shock results when the ground is good and form is the main ingredient for winner-finding. A total of 32 of the last 35 RSA Chase winners had finished first or second last time out. The last 22 winners of the World Hurdle all finished in the first four on their latest start, and 15 of the last 17 Champion Bumper winners scored in their previous race. Key races for festival winners are, in order of merit, the King George, the Tingle Creek and the Racing Post chases. Recent form is essential - more than 85% of festival winners had raced between Boxing Day and the day of their race – but consistency and depth of form, too, is important: all bar one Gold Cup winner this century had raced before Christmas; and, going right back into their history, seven had started their careers in Irish point-to-points. Gravy Trainers: Paul Nicholls has been leading trainer for the past four festivals and has been vanquished only once in six seasons but he still has a long way to go to catch Nicky Henderson overall; Nicky leads him by 34 winners to 25, with Edward O’Grady the leading Irish trainer on 18, with two more Irishmen close behind (Jonjo O’Neill 16, Willie Mullins 15). Some stables ‘farm’ particular races: Jonjo has had five wins in the National Hunt Chase. Enda Bolger has had four wins in the first five runnings of the cross-country race. Greatest Gold Cup training feats have been by Michael Dickinson (first five home in 1983) and Paul Nicholls (four of first five in 2009). Nicholls and Henderson remain as dominant as the great rivals Fulke Walwyn (40 wins up to 1986), Fred Winter (28 up to 1988) and, for Ireland, Tom Dreaper (26 up to 1971). Jockey Pageant: We are currently blessed with two of the greatest jumps jockeys of all time, Tony McCoy and Ruby Walsh, who last year overtook McCoy as current leading festival jockey after an unprecedented seven 2009 victories, taking him to 24 overall against McCoy’s 21 and Barry Geraghty’s 16. Walsh needs one more this week to equal the all-time record set by Arkle’s famous rider, Pat Taaffe. Richard Dunwoody still holds third place with 18. After all these years, Fred Winter is still riding high on the list with 17. Irish Ayes And Noes: Following the Irish brings a hatful of regular winners but means avoiding some races: no Irish-trained horse has won the World Hurdle for 15 years; they’ve now gone eight seasons without a Triumph Hurdle winner; there has been no Irish Kim Muir winner for 27 years. But the Champion Bumper belongs to them: they’ve won 14 out of 17 (Willie Mullins six). Betdaq Special Bets: Now check out Betdaq Cheltenham Festival Special Bets for trading on top trainers, jockeys and Irish winners. Handicaps Are No Such Thing: Steer clear of handicaps is an old punting adage, based on their being framed so that, in theory, all the horses dead-heat. But, in fact, Cheltenham festival handicaps are no handicap to success; the stats reveal that horses just can’t carry big weights at suicide speed round this helter-skelter track. Around 85% of handicap winners at the festival carry 11st or lower. For example, in the William Hill Trophy, you won’t find a winner this century that was saddled with more than 10st 12lb. but, as I write, 14 horses are out of the handicap. So it is that, taking only those in mid-handicap, you are left with, at most (I’m sure you can eliminate more of them) 24 horses from the 55 decs. If that’s where the winner comes from, it stands to reason that prices and offers for horses in that area of the race are better value. Old Winning System: Keep young horses on your side in steeplechases. This is a track for speed, particularly this year when the surface is dry. Jumpers largely lose their zip as they reach a double-figure age. For instance, in that William Hill Trophy, there has been only one winner over the age of nine since last century. The exception to the rule is the stayers’ race; as in the Grand National, older and more experienced horses do best. For instance, in the four-mile National Hunt Chase a total of 60 horses aged five and six have been beaten since 1989. The exception to the rule was last year’s winner, Tricky Trickster (aged six) in a promising run with this year’s Aintree in mind. The same thing applies to hurdles: young horses for shorter distances, older horses for staying races. For instance, the Pertemps Final winners this century have all been aged six to nine; only one five-year-old has won in 35 years, though some have started favourite. Opening Gambit: Many bookmakers will want to ‘get’ Dunguib in the very first race to set themselves up for the meeting. Additionally, he’s a rear runner, so looks sure to get behind in the early cavalry charge. Those are two good reasons to lay him at odds on today and back him when the price eases near the ‘off’ or when he gives the others a start in running. Winners last time out which have raced more than once and come from the front of the market account for 65% of winners of novice hurdles at the Festival: some 83% of winners had a strike rate of 50% or better and 73% had run three times. The Getting-Out Stakes: No winner this century of the Grand Annual, final race on Friday’s card, has carried more than 10st 11lb. Only one favourite has won in eight seasons but five winners out of seven have come in the narrow SP band of 6-1 to 8-1 and five out of eight were rated in an even tighter parameter of between 143 and 145 by the Racing Post. The Last Resort: My Petra was only just run out of it in the 2008 Grand Annual but got it all wrong last year when she was in season. So keen is Nicky Henderson on her chances this year – after bringing her back to form with a second at Doncaster last time – that, to avoid the same situation this week, he picked a stallion for her and she’s been put into foal. My Petra runs on Thursday, and mother and baby should do well.. Next Year: Al have an early pound for 2011 about an Ian Williams’ Irish-bred who has landed four races in a row, two chases already at Cheltenham. Such a shame Weird Al has to miss this year. Good luck to all Betdaq backers and layers. MONDAY'S BETS BET 4pts win SUMDANCER and 1pt win QUATRE HUIT (3.30 Plumpton) BET 3pts win QUEDILLAC (5.00 Plumpton) BET 3pts win on each LEPIDO and REBEL DANCER (5.20 Taunton) DAQ MULTIPLES: BET 2pts win double Super Kenny (2.10 Stratford) and My Old Piano (4.10 Stratford) and 1pt win double SUMDANCER (3.30 Plumpton) and REBEL DANCER (5.20 Taunton)
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