Racing Insights

Racing Insights, Tuesday 09/07/24

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.

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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.

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Here are my qualifiers on Tuesday's Shortlist...

...where all of them must be worth at least a quick look. As ever, the daily feature is complemented by a selection of fully functional racecards opened up to all readers and for Tuesday they cover...

  • 3.40 Pontefract
  • 4.55 Lingfield
  • 5.05 Uttoxeter
  • 5.10 Tramore

Now, I see that Delta Legend from The Shortlist runs in one of those free races above, but it looks a poor contest and I think I'd rather look at a higher category of race like the 3.40 Pontefract, an 8-runner, Class 2, 3yo+ flat handicap over a left-handed 6f on good to firm ground...

This actually looks like a really open race today, so let's see if we can glean any pointers from the toolkit. None of them seem to be coming here in much form with bottom weight Flaccianello's runner-up finish in an eleven-runner race at York 25 days ago, the best of the field's last efforts, none of the others even made the frame. That said, only Silky Wilkie and Woven have failed to win any of their last six outings and they come here on streaks of fifteen and nine defeats respectively.

With the above in mind, I can't see Woven's chances being enhanced by a step up in class, as does Wen Moon, whilst Room Service drops down from finishing 6th of 14 in a Listed race to come here for just his second handicap outing. Coachella and Wen Moon wear tongue-ties for the second time today and jockey Sam Feilden will take 7lbs off Silky Wilkie's allotted weight of 9st 11lbs.

All bar Silky Wilkie (off for 38 days) and Room Service (52d) have raced in the last 17-25 days so all should be race-sharp and Room Service is the only one in the race yet to score over today's trip; but he did win over 5½f on debut and also over 6½f three starts ago, so the trip shouldn't be an issue. Wen Moon is the only runner to have visited Pontefract before with one win (over this trip) and one place (over 5f) from three attempts...

Instant Expert tells us that Roman Dragon and Woven are a combined 0 from 25 at Class 2 on the Flat and that the latter is also a meagre 1 from 26 over this trip, so he's going to be tough to back here, but Roman Dragon's 5 wins from 13 over the trip is a good return. Wen Moon is hovering close to being ruled on on class (0 from 6) and distance (1 from 7) too, but let's see if his place stats come to his rescue today...

...and I suppose it just about does. he's not the strongest contender at this point, but after Instant Expert, these are the ones that I'd focus on...

...which dismisses the runners in stalls 6 and 8, so i hope that if there's a draw bias, that lower drawn runners are the ones who normally benefit! Fortunately here over 6f at Ponty, that does seem to be the case, with stalls 1-5 having the best of the wins and stalls 1-4 making the frame most often...

But getting a low-ish draw is just one half of the battle here at Pontefract, making full use of it is the key and to do so, you need to get away sharpish and be up with the pace; setting the pace from the front is even better...

...as leaders have won 31.6% of the races and taken 24.6% of the places from just 15.9% of the runners, which means that this following pace/draw heat map really shouldn't be any surprise...



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...which then directs us back to the runners themselves as we try to ascertain who might race prominently or even attempt to win from the front and of the evidence of recent efforts, Matters Most is the only one who seems to enjoy being up with the pace...

I'd ignore his last run, as that was a 28-runner, 5f dash where he just couldn't get involved but he does like to be upfront, whilst Silky Wilkie is the only other one known for getting out sharp-ish, but he's over in stall 7 which isn't ideal.

Summary

It's a really open contest, this one and you could make a case for most of them. So, with that in mind, it'd be small stakes if any at all and I think I'd probably side with Matters Most over Silky Wilkie based on pace/draw with Room Service possibly the one to complete the frame.

Based on the market as of 5pm Monday...

...Silky Wilkie is definitely in E/W territory, whilst 11/2 about Matters most looks more than fair.

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