Racing Insights, Tuesday 14/05/24

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.

As ever, the daily feature is complemented by a selection of fully functional racecards opened up to all readers and for Tuesday they cover...

• 5.05 Southwell
• 7.50 Killarney
• 8.00 Ayr
• 9.00 Ayr

The above six UK races contain a trio of Class 4 contests, which aside from the Class 3 7.30 Ayr, is as good as it gets in the UK on Tuesday, so I'm taking the most valuable of the three, the 8.00 Ayr for today's column. It's a 9-runner, Class 4, 4yo+ flat handicap over a left-handed 7f on good to firm ground with the following line-up...

Bowman won last time out, whilst Kelpie Grey comes here on a hat-trick after winning three of his last four. Archduke Ferdinand was a recent runner-up but the other half dozen all failed to make the frame whilst Orbaan, Prairie Falcon and Bowood are all winless in five or more starts : 17, 9 and 13 to be precise with Bowood yet to win any race.

His cause is unlikely to be helped by stepping up a level here, as do Ahamoment and the fast-finishing Bowman. Yaaser is also marked as a fast-finisher, form horse Kelpie Grey is up two classes here and out of sorts Prairie Falcon is now blinkered for the first time.

Bowood might also need a run after a 99-day absence, whilst Yaaser and Judgment Call now both run for the first time since October. Bowood is the only maiden in the race and all of his eight rivals have already won over this trip before now. Prairie Falcon has also won here at Ayr, but over 6f, whilst Kelpie Grey, Judgment Call, Yaaser and Ahamoment have all won over course and distance...

As is often the case with INSTANT EXPERT, if there's no standout candidate on the win data it can still help you highlight those who might struggle under the prevalent conditions and here I have doubts about the win prospects of Yaaser (class), Judgment Call (track) and both Orbaan & Archduke Ferdinand (trip). Most of those with a relatively recent win are rated 5 to 8lbs more than their last win, but Orbaan's mark has plummeted during his poor run of rom and I'm not convinced it has bottomed out.

A poor win return on Instant Expert doesn't necessarily mean the horse has consistently run poorly, though, he could have been unlucky or had ran well, but just not quite well enough and that's why we also have the place data from the same races...

The old adage says that you have to be in it to win it and if you're not making the frame, you're not going on to win, so I need to start whittling some of these out of contention. Field size doesn't really worry me too much, but I do like runners to have green for at least two of going, class, track and trip, so from here Kelpie grey, Yaaser, Prairie Falcon and Ahamoment are my take-aways.

I don't think there's a huge draw bias at play here at Ayr over 7f  to a mile, even if those drawn more centrally haven't quite achieved the par number of wins expected...

...the fact that they've made the frame more often than runners either side suggests they've ran just as well if not better overall, so I'm not reading too much into the raw data above just now. Pace, however, is a different kettle of fish. Those keen to get on with things are rewarded here...

...with leaders faring just marginally better than those chasing prominently. And if we then look at how this field have approached their most recent outings...

...then first four on that list are probably the ones best suited to Ayr and if Kelpie Grey does take it on early from stall 2, then the pace/draw heat map says he has a great chance of completing a hat-trick...

Summary

It's Kelpie Grey for me (and probably many others!), he's in form, scored as well as any of the others on Instant Expert, should be suited by the pace of the race and has the ideal pace/draw make-up for this type of race.

After him, you can make cases for a few to chase him home, but not with great conviction if truth be told, which does strengthen my thought about him winning again.

I did like Yaaser until I saw he was a hold-up type, but there aren't many standing out for me. Perhaps Ahamoment might be the E/W play here, should odds permit? He also scored well enough on IE across the board and led last time out.

Quick odds check at 4.35pm Monday showed Kelpie Grey at a best of 5/2 (fav) with Bet365 with Ahamoment a generally available 12/1. he was well beaten by Kelpie Grey last time out, but does have three wins (inc one at CD) and a place from his last seven and another placed finish might not be too outrageous.

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Tix Picks, Monday 09/12/24
• Tix Picks, Saturday 07/12/24
• Tix Picks, Friday 06/12/24
• Tix Picks, Thursday 05/12/24
• Tix Picks, Wednesday 04/12/24