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.
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 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...
...where Mister X would be of immediate interest. We do still also have our daily list of 'free' racecards, which are as follows...
- 2.05 Tipperary
- 2.25 Newmarket
- 3.50 Tipperary
- 4.25 Tipperary
- 6.00 Southwell
They say it's a long way to Tipperary and I've no desire to go racing there, a decision allied to my steadfast unwillingness to consider Flat racing in April leads me/us to either the last of the 'free' races or to look at Mister X and as the latter runs in what looks a marginally better race on paper, we're off to the 2.00 Lingfield, a 7-runner, Class 5, 3yo, A/W handicap over a left handed 7f on standard polytrack...
None of these won last time out, but Albert Cee, Topo Chico and The Toff were all runners-up, whilst Mister X's win two starts ago here over course and distance is the only recent win from any of these runners. In fact his rivals are a combined career 0 from 34!
Ferensby and Trilby head the weights and both drop in class for their handicap debuts, whilst Aurora Dawn also tackles handicap company for the first time. Albert Cee and Topo Chico both step up in class, despite never having won a race at any class. As Mister X is the sole winner in the field, it's obvious that he'd be the only one to have won at either track or trip and he did win over course and distance two starts ago.
Aurora Dawn has been off the track for almost twelve weeks, but the remainder have all been out since the start of March with three of them running this month already.
Instant Expert won't show many wins, of course, but it might show who has tackled similar conditions and failed...
Mister X should relish the conditions off just 1lb higher than his last win, whilst red flags are raised for Topo Chico for going/class/distance and The Toff for class/distance, but maybe the place stats will show them in a better light...
...and thankfully for all bar Aurora Dawn, that does appear to be the case. Mister X does still look well set, but Topo Chico has better percentage figures for going/class/distance with the obvious caveat that he's still a maiden after nine races.
Mister X's apparent supremacy is tempered, however, by the fact that stall1 has been the worst performing stall over 7f on the A/W here at Lingfield in 7-runner races...
...and that data isn't great news for Topo Chico out in box seven either, so much will depend on the pace/tactics of the race. Those races above have tended to be dominated by those willing to race from the front...
...with hold-up horses faring worst of all and if we look at how this field has approached recent (largely unsuccessful) outings...
...suggesting that not only is Topo Chico badly drawn, he might also need to pass six runners to win this. Mister X looks like he'll be up with the pace and his course/distance experience might well come into play here.
Summary
It looks a very open race between seven pretty average horses and with his profile, I'm really surprised that Mister X is the 14/1 outsider of the field with Bet365 at 5.40pm.
None of his rivals have convinced me enough to back them, so I'd be looking at a small E/W play on The Shortlist horse Mister X at 14's.
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
