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.
[Please refer to our User Guide for further information] and here is Tuesday's Shortlist...
...with a couple at least worth a second glance. As ever, the daily feature is complemented by a selection of fully functional racecards opened up to all readers and for this Tuesday they cover the following...
- 3.30 Lingfield
- 4.15 Musselburgh
- 6.53 Ballinrobe
- 7.53 Ballinrobe
There's one Class 3 race in the UK on Tuesday, but I don't do Novice events, so the remaining 21 races are either Class 5 or Class 6, the most valuable of which features Rock Melody from The Shortlist, so let's have a look at that 3.45 Musselburgh, a 10-runner, Class 5, 3yo+ flat handicap over a straight 5f on good ground...
Eight year old Ghathanfar is the oldest runner in the field, but comes here a fortnight after finishing third of nine at Pontefract beaten by little more than half a length, whilst Le Beau Garcon won by a similar margin (beating the re-opposing Khabib into second) at Thirsk four weeks ago.
None of the other eight runners managed to make the frame on their last outings and aside from Le Beau Garcon, only Profitable Edge (twice), Ziggy's Queen, Classy Al and Albegone (twice) have managed a win in their last seven outings; Khabib, Rock Melody, Ghathanfar, Vadamiah and Pockley are on losing runs of 9, 7, 23, 10 and 14 races respectively with the last of that quintet, Pockley, yet to win on Turf after 26 attempts!
Of the ten, only Ghathanfar ran at this grade with all of his rivals actually dropping in class today. Most drop down from Class 4, but Rock Melody, Classy Al and Pockley all drop down two levels here and none of the field should have any fitness/sharpness issues, as they've all raced in the last 14 (Ghathanfar) to 37 (Rock Melody) days.
All ten have also won over today's trip at least once and three (Ziggy's Queen, Rock Melody & Albegone) have all won over course distance, whilst Ghathanfar was a winner here over 7f just over four years ago, which, of course, won't show up on the 2yr record on Instant Expert!
As you'd expect Rock Melody from The Shortlist is the immediate eye-catcher here, as most of the field have poor records on good ground. Classy Al has struggled to win at Class 5 and the trip has been an issue for Khabib, Le Beau Garcon, Ziggy's Queen and Vadamiah, but two of this quartet do have have good place stats...
...with only the runners in stalls 1 & 10 (Pockely & Khabib) having no green at all. It's a straight 5f on good ground, so you wouldn't expect the draw to have too much influence, but for some reason those drawn more centrally have struggled to win, whilst those drawn highest have the best place records...
...whilst in terms of pace/tactics, those 65 races above have tended to favour front runners, like most straight 5f races do in fairness...
...which gives us a bit of a mixed bag on the pace/draw heat map...
...where the three most successful combos are high drawn leaders, low drawn leaders and high drawn mid-division runners, so let's see how this field have approached their recent races...
Summary
The low-drawn front runner Ghathanfar is the obvious starting point, but despite a recent run of results reading 32303, he still strikes me more as a placer than a winner having failed to win any of his last 23 races. Vadamiah ticks the high drawn leader box, but he's also winless in ten, making the frame in just two of those defeats.
This brings Khabib into the equation next, as the high-drawn mid-division runner and although he was only fifth last time out, he was a half-length runner-up to the in-form Le Beau Garcon two starts ago on the latter's last outing and Khabib is now 2lbs better off today. We should also remember Rock Melody from The Shortlist who has ideal conditions here.
That said, I suspect the in-form Le Beau Garcon will be the one to beat here with Khabib, Rock Melody and Ghathanfar scrapping for the places behind him. We had no market at 3pm Monday, but I'd be looking at getting a reasonable (4/1-ish?) price about LBG and then taking a small E/W punt on whichever of Khabib, Rock Melody and Ghathanfar (if any!) trade at 8/1 or bigger.
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
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