The Shortlist is Tuesday's free Geegeez GOLD feature and it's a simple (usually brief) report highlighting those horses with a largely ‘green’ profile in the Instant Expert Report each day and it covers win or place stats for both the current and the next day's racing.
GREEN is good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBER is quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
RED is not so good (0-15% win rate) – worth -1 points
GREY means there is no available data for that factor - worth 0 points
The final column, ‘Score’, is the sum of the previous five ‘colour’ columns, with 15 being an all green profile, and 9 being the lowest score appearing on this report.
HINT: The best bets are not necessarily the highest scores. Rather, they are often the biggest difference between a Shortlist horse and the ‘best of the rest’ in that race.
N.B. Shortlist selections are unlikely to make a profit, at SP at least, to blind backing. Our recommendation has always been that The Shortlist should be a starting point rather than an end in itself. That said, it continues to highlight horses whose chance is better than recent form and its odds might imply.
[Please refer to our User Guide for further information] and here is Tuesday's Shortlist...
...where I suppose Smith and Gincident would be of the most obvious immediate interest to me. As ever, the daily feature is complemented by a selection of fully functional racecards opened up to all readers and for Tuesday they cover...
- 12.30 Lingfield
- 1.50 Southwell
- 3.35 Lingfield
- 6.30 Wolverhampton
I'll swerve Southwell for fear of a second successive abandonment for us and I'll head for the race starring Gincident, which is the highest rated of the races above. It is, of course, the 7.00 Wolverhampton, a 9-runner, Class 3, 3yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed 1m½f on standard tapeta...
...and our ever informative cards show...
FORM : No LTO winners, but Woodstock City, Talis Evolvere and Urban Sprawl were placed, but the latter is winless in his recent form-line, as is Young Fire. Woodstock City, Queen of Ipanema, Gincident and Visibility have all won two from their last six.
CLASS : Talis Evolvere, Chantico and Young Fire all step up a class, whilst bottom-weight and fast-finishing Visibility is up two classes.
WHAT'S NEW? : Sceptic and Chantico both make debuts for their new yards and the former runs for the first time since wind surgery and the latter is denoted as a fast finisher. Woodstock City runs in handicap company for the first time and also makes a UK debut after 2 wins and 4 third places from ten runs in France.
LAST SEEN? : Most of these have had a run in the last four weeks, but Scepic has been off for eleven weeks and Woodstock City for three months. However, that's nothing compared to the layoffs of Chantico (227d) and Queen of Ipanema (242d) and this pair might well be feeling it in the closing stages if they go off quickly.
COURSE/DISTANCE WINS : Queen of Ipanema has won here over 1m1½f and 1m4f, but Gincident, Young Fire and Visibility are all former course and distance winners and all these course wins are shown below in Instant Expert...
...where, as you'd expect from The Shortlist, Gincident looks very well suited to the task in hand as do to a lesser extent, Sceptic and Queen of Ipanema. Young Fire looks like a blowout after plenty of attempts to get it right here, but Visibility looks interesting if not earth-shattering.
The corresponding place data from those races above looks like this...
...with only Young Fire and Visibility looking suspect. Young Fire does, of course, occupy stall 1, so let's check our Draw Analyser to see if that's usually a help or a hindrance...
Well, it appears that there's a very slight advantage to having a higher draw, but those drawn lowest make the frame more often, but again the advantage is very slight, so I'm going to say that none of these should lose this race purely because if which stall they emerge from.
The likelihood is that much will depend on how they emerge from those stalls and how they proceed to make their way home and our Pace Analyser suggests that you want to be on a prominent/leading runner...
...and the lack of obvious pace in this pack (based on their recent outings) might give an easy opening to Urban Sprawl...
He's not a front-runner by any means, of course, but regularly races prominently and regularly makes the frame by doing so.
Summary
Whilst winless in twelve (seven on the Flat followed by five on the A/W), Urban Sprawl's last five results (all on A/W) read 33243 and was a good third on his Wolverhampton debut last time out. He drops back a furlong here and I fancy him to make the frame again here.
That said, he's probably not the winner (he tends not to be) and that's more likely to be Talis Evolvere who ran weel to finish second over 7f here last time out, having led early on, but was outpaced in the later sprint for the line. The extra yardage should help here.
Unsurprisingly, these two head the market, but they're probably the best two in the race. My longshot who might outrun his odds is Young Fire, who looks better than an 18/1 shot and if a few falter, he could make the frame here.
Other Recent Posts by This Author:
- Tix Picks, Saturday 04/01/25
- Tix Picks, Friday 03/01/25
- Tix Picks, Thursday 02/01/25
- Tix Picks, Tuesday 31/12/24
- Tix Picks, Monday 30/12/24
