Racing Insights, Tuesday 24/10/23 geegeez.co.uk

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.

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Here are my qualifiers on Tuesday's Shortlist...

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

2.30 Exeter
3.10 Hereford
4.00 Exeter
7.30 Wolverhampton

And as one of my runners from The Shortlist is in one of our free races, I think we should look at Ajp Kingdom and his rivals in the 4.00 Exeter, an 11-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over a right handed 2m7f on good ground...

Bottom weight Oceanline and The Imposter both won last time out and the latter has won his last three and has six wins and a runner-up finish from his last seven outings. Goshhowposh and Brave Starlight are both three-race maidens, whilst Royal Pretender and Moka de Vassy are winless in eight and ten races respectively; the former does place regularly though, but the latter is now 0 from 10!

Plenty of these are moving class here with Itso Fury, Go Chique, Ajp Kingdom and Brave Starlight all dropping in from Class 2, whilst the ten-race maiden Moka de Vassy, Goshhowposh and the form horse The Impostor all step up from Class 4.

Goshhowposh and Brave Starlight are both making handicap debuts here today after breaks of 297 and 144 days respectively, but others are returning from layoffs too, as Exmoor Forest, Itso Fury, The Imposter and Royal Pretender have been rested for 165, 199, 20 and 325 days themselves. The other five in the race have all been out in the last six weeks, though.

None of the field have won here at Exeter before, but only three have been here in a total of five races and whilst we also have no 2m7f winners, Ajp Kingdom, Gentleman Valley, Go Chique and The Imposter have all won at both 2m7½f and 3m.

Instant Expert says that this bunch haven't fared too well at this grade and we already know about the lack of course wins...

...but if we're looking at going and distance, then Itso Fury, Gentleman Valley and Ajp Kingdom are the eyecatchers with honourable mentions for Go Chique and The Imposter. Royal Pretender has failed to win any of eight starts at Class 3, but he hasn't struggled in all of them, as the place stats will show...

...in fact his place credentials look pretty good there and he's probably second best on numbers behind Itso Fury.

When it comes to judging the pace of the contest, previous similar races here at Exeter haven't been kind to hold-up horses...

...but thankfully none of these are out and out hold-up types, according to their last few runs...

I'd expect The Imposter and Ajp Kingdom to try to control the race from the front, but they probably won't be able to break clear from a group where all runners bar Goshhowposh have led/ran prominently in at least one of their last four outings and I think we're going to have a fairly tight bunch travelling together.

Summary

This looks a really tight/open race with plenty holding chances. So much so that the early Hills prices for this race only ranged from 6/1 to 12/1 for the whole field and it looks a tough one to call. Personally, I like The Imposter's form and he's very game, I also like the way Itso Fury scored well in the analysis, whilst Ajp Kingdom's place on The Shortlist must stand him in good stead.

Gentleman Valley also scored well on Instant Expert and E/W bettors have done well out of Royal Pretender, who has placed in 8 of his 13 starts over hurdles.

You really could make a case for most of these to put a decent effort in, but the five above would be the ones that interest me most. If pushed to pick a winner, I think I'd go with Itso Fury at 6/1 ahead of he similarly priced The Imposter. As you know I only like to play the E/W markets if I can get 8/1 or bigger, but both Gentleman Valley and Royal Pretender are offered at 10's, so they're options, especially with Betfred, Coral & Skybet all paying four places.

That said, it's not a race to put too much money on, but it could be an interesting watch.

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