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...
...where Rajindri would be of most obvious interest. As ever, the daily feature is complemented by a selection of fully functional racecards opened up to all readers and for Tuesday they cover...
- 3.00 Brighton
- 3.40 Punchestown
- 4.00 Nottingham
- 5.45 Catterick
...from which I think I will have a look at the 4yr old Rajindri and the other 10 runners in the 5.00 Yarmouth, which is a Class 4, 3yo+ fillies' flat handicap over a straight 7f on good to soft ground...
Nighteyes was the only one of these to have won last time out, but Rajindri was a runner-up and is two from four, whilst Queens Reign, Bella Bisbee and Royal Elysian all won their penultimate starts with the latter also finishing third last time out, as did Rating and Elderflower.
Top-weight Conservatonist drops down a class for his debut for Kevin Ryan, Shin Jihai drops down two classes for her second crack at a handicap and Queen's Reign makes her handicap bow, 3 classes lower than her Group 3 defeat (Solera Stakes) last time out.
Going the other direction are Bella Bisbee and Elderflower who both step up one class for their handicap debuts, whilst it's handicap debut day for Nighteyes and a second attempt for Baileys Pola Dot (after a recent wind op), Bigger than Giga and Royal Elysian.
In fact only Conservationist, Rajindri and Rating have more than one handicap run under their belts and Rating is the horse turned back out quickest, just a fortnight after finishing third of nine at Newmarket. Royal Elysian and Bella Bisbee both ran three and four weeks ago respectively, whilst Baileys Polka Dot (72 days off) is the only other filly to have raced on 2024.
Elderflower was in action just before Christmas last year, but Shin Jihai, Conservationist, Rajindri, Bigger Than Giga, Queens Reign and Nighteyes have all been absent for seven moths or more and might well need the run!
Rajindri is the only one of the field to have raced here at Yarmouth before and he's a course and distance winner, but Queen's Reign, Bigger Than Giga and Shin Jihai have also won over this trip, as shown on a rather depleted-looking Instant Expert...
...dominated as you'd expect by Rajindri from TS. That said, the field only have 52 races between them so far and just 10 wins, so I'm hoping to get a bit more help from the place data...
...which again confirms Rajindri's liking of the expected conditions, but most of them show up well and I wouldn't write any of them off just yet, but Conservationist, Rajindri, Nighteyes and Rating edge it here for me (high percentages off more than just one run!).
I didn't get as much assistance as I'd hoped for from Instant Expert, which is a shame as I'm not expecting much help from the draw stats. Surely there's not much draw bias in a straight seven furlongs here?
Hmmm, not a huge bias, but it would appear that stalls 1 to 5 might well be the place to be, based on an admittedly fairly small sample size, which could potentially be good news for Nighteyes, Queen's Reign, Rajindri, Bella Bisbee and Elderflower. If we then see how those races above were won...
...the inference is quite clear. You need to get on with things early doors here at Yarmouth with those racing prominently or leading going on to provide 57.7% of the winners and 44.2% of the placed horses from just 39.3% of the runners with leaders winning far more than their fair share, so if any of Nighteyes, Queen's Reign, Rajindri, Bella Bisbee and Elderflower are front-runners, they could be expected to go well.
Now, we never who might lead, but by looking at how horses have raced in the past, we can sometimes make a judgment call as to how a race might pan out, so let's look at this field's most recent efforts...
...where Conservationist, Nighteyes, Rating and Queen's Reign would be the ones to take from here and this quartet will emerge from stalls 11, 1, 9 and 2 respectively.
Summary
If we start with recent form, then Nighteyes, Rajindri, Queens Reign, Bella Bisbee, Royal Elysian, Rating and Elderflower all merit a second look and it was Conservationist, Rajindri, Nighteyes and Rating who caught my eye most from Instant Expert.
We then moved to the draw and ace stats and from past similar races, stalls 1 to 5 (Nighteyes, Queen's Reign, Rajindri, Bella Bisbee and Elderflower) were deemed the best places to be drawn for a race that suits leaders and prominent runners. From the field's last few races, Conservationist, Nighteyes, Rating and Queen's Reign seem most likely to be setting the tempo.
It's very rare that a horse ticks all the analysis boxes for me, but one horse keeps popping up here and that's Nighteyes. I do have some concerns about her nine-month layoff, but having looked at the market at 5.45pm on Monday...
...I'd be happy with 10/1 as an E/W option.
Rating and Rajindri also ticked several boxes and I suspect they'll both go well and this could easily be the day that Rating finally gets off the mark after eight defeats, She has been close of late, finishing 233 in her last three outings and should come on for having had a run earlier this month. Rajindri has conditions to suit here, too and should be in the mix if race-ready after a break.