Tuesday's free offering from the GOLD service is the The Shortlist feature, a simple – and usually brief – report highlighting those horses with a largely ‘green’ profile in the Instant Expert Report each day. It covers win or place stats, and can be viewed for both today’s and tomorrow’s racing.
GREENis good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBERis quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
REDis 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 is – and 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 - imply. As ever, please refer to our User Guide for further information!
And this how The Shortlist looks for this Tuesday...
...with the first two of immediate interest along with our daily list of 'free' racecards, which are as follows...
- 3.02 Salisbury
- 5.15 Sligo
- 6.00 Wetherby
- 7.45 Sligo
The highest-rated of the UK races above is a Class 4 maiden and whilst I've no issue with Class 4 contests, I'm not a fan of maiden races and it's a good job I've no issue with Class 4 racing, as that's as good as it gets on Tuesday in the UK. I've selected the most valuable Fkat race in that grade for my column, as we now turn our attention to the 5.07 Salisbury, a 12-runner, Class 4 (obviously!), 3yo+ fillies' flat handicap over a right-handed 1m2f on good to firm ground...
...where this relatively inexperienced (just 62 total starts)field boasts three LTO winners in the shape of Elladonna (who is two from four), Quietness and bottom-weight Pratigya, whilst Glimmer of Light, Miss Bielsa and Xiomara all made the frame. Ciara Pearl has won three of her last four and Big Time Bridget, Meleri & Alhattan have all won at lest one of their own last four, giving us a fairly competitive race for the grade.
Elladonna, Quietness, Switchel, Glimmer of Light, Miss Bielsa, Xiomara, Frankelian and Pratigya all step up a level from Class 5, but Bigtime Bridget last raced in a Listed contest. She now wears a tongue-tie for the first time, whilst Switchel is now to be tried in a hood on her return from almost seven months off track and she's not the only one running after a break as Glimmer of Light and Frankelian have been off for 175 and 251 days respectively.
Xiomara has only raced in handicap company once before, whilst it's debut day for Bigtime Bridget, Glimmer of Light, Miss Bielsa, Frankelian and Pratigya. Elladonna was fifth of twelve over course and distance here on debut just over a year ago and she's the only one in this field to have raced at Salisbury before, but she has won over this trip in the past, as have Ciara Pearl, Meleri and Miss Bielsa.
Unfortunately with an inexperienced field, Instant Expert doesn't show a stack of data..
...from a win perspective, especially as the field have just 13 wins between albeit at a reasonable strike rate of near enough 21% overall. Obviously the place stats can't conjure up more races to cover, but they do give us a little bit of meat to add to the bones from above...
...with Quietness and Ciara Pearl probably the to best suited off limited data. Meleri's best work has been on slower ground at Class 5, but she certainly gets the trip; Pratigya makes a turf debut here after three A/W outings and these two are drawn widest of all today and the draw stats would initially suggest that this is an advantage...
...but closer inspection says there's very little in it really with those drawn centrally faring slightly worse on both win and place for some unknown reason. A slightly clearer picture emerges when we look how those races were won, as hold-up horses have really struggled to win...
...whilst racing prominently and/or leading has been the best way of making the frame, which based on the field's most recent efforts, probably isn't great news for Xiomara and Miss Bielsa...
...and whilst Elladonna and Alhattan head that graphic, there's actually no obvious out and out pace maker in the field, so it will probably land at their feet to take it on or maybe Glimmer of Light/Frankelian?
Summary
Sadly, we haven't gleaned much from the toolkit today (we are human after all!), but based on the above, form and my own personal feelings/thoughts, the three that I'd take against the field here would be Elladonna, Alhattan and Ciara Pearl in that order, but based on the prices from Hills at 3.20pm...
...I'd suggest that Ciara Pearl might be a good E/W option.
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
