Racing Insights, Tuesday 12/03/24

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.

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.

Since finishing as a runner-up in back to back races at Wolverhampton in October and December 2023, The Craftymaster is six from six, including four wins on Tapeta, three over today's trip, one here at Southwell and one over course and distance, when two lengths clear last time out. None of his rivals won last time out, but Midnight Shimmer was a runner-up and Socialist Agenda was third of nione here over 1m6f. Aside from The Craftymaster, only Churchella has won any of their last seven races, as she scored three and five races ago.

Her hopes will be boosted by a drop down from Class 5, just as Zooks does in a first-time tongue tie, but any hope might extinguished by the fact that The Craftymaster also makes the same step down in grade, whilst Kintaro drops down two classes for his first run in cheekpieces.

The Craftymaster has five wins and a place from six efforts at 2m/2m½f and is 1 from 1 here at Southwell, but none of his rivals have scored at either track or trip with Instant Expert making our featured runner look a bit of a shoo-in...

Churchella's wins last September & December set her aside from the others on going and class, but she's still 3lbs higher than her last win despite losing her last two. That said, she ran pretty well to finish second of six over course and distance here two starts ago in what has been her only effort beyond 1m6f to date and this run is reflected below in the IE place stats...

...where bottom-weight Midnight Shimmer also becomes of interest and Sugarpiehoneybunch looks very vulnerable having made the frame just once in thirteen all-weather races. Just seven run here in total and over such a lengthy trip, my personal logic is that the draw really shouldn't have any effect on the outcome. Two miles is a long way to run after the gates open and even if you're six away from the rail, that shouldn't be the reason for not winning, but I'll check the stats anyway, of course.

I had to widen the search parameters to get anywhere near a working sample size, as follows...

...and although they (and I normally) say you can't argue with stats, I think that some hold more validity than others and I remain unconvinced that draw is as important in small-field staying races as it might be elsewhere (sorry, Matt!).  Pace, however, is a different story as race tactics/tempo can easily make or break a horse's chances and what we found from those races above was that leaders have a good record of making the frame, but don't manage to hold onto the lead...

If we look at the field's most recent efforts, I think that the lead will be contested by Zooks, Kintaro and Midnight Shimmer...

...which makes them very susceptible to late runs from The Craftymaster, Churchella and Socialist Agenda, as I've already put Sugarpiehoneybunch out of contention.

Summary

He's going to be terribly short, but barring some form of fluke or disaster, this has to be The Craftymaster's seventh win on the bounce. I know he's up in weight carrying a penalty but he's down in class and should blow these all away late on. I'm not a fan of backing shorties and there were no odds available at 3.15pm on Monday, but the two tissues I saw had him at 5/4 & 7/4 and if you can get those types of prices, then there could actually still be some value from a runner that I think should be odds on.

Elsewhere, Midnight Shimmer and Socialist Agenda should run their races and the tissues have them at around the 7/2 and 4/1 mark respectively, but the one I think that might beat them and make the frame would be Churchella at 11/2 or thereabouts. She's got some relatively recent winning form in the bank and has two wins and a runner-up finish from four rides with Danny Tudhope in the saddle and Danny is 19 from 88 (21.6% SR) on the tapeta here at Southwell, including 8 from 32 at Class 6, 7 from 21 on favourites, 5 from 30 for trainer David O'Meara and 2 from 2 on Class 6 favs.

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Tix Picks, Thursday 03/10/24
• Tix Picks, Wednesday 02/10/24
• Tix Picks, Tuesday 01/10/24
• Tix Picks, Monday 30/09/24
• Tix Picks, Saturday 28/09/24