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.
GREENis good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBERis quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
REDis 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...
...with Issuing Authority of most immediate interest whilst we do still also have our daily list of 'free' racecards, which are as follows...
- 1.25 Limerick
- 4.10 Newcastle
- 4.20 Limerick
- 6.00 Southwell
Supremely West from The Shortlist runs in one of the day's four joint highest-rated (it's a fairly low bar mind)races, the 2.45 Chepstow, an 8-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over a left-handed 2m4f on heavy ground...
My initial thoughts were that main players here would be Cuthbert Dibble, Supremely West and Jaminska with all three relatively unexposed in handicap company; Supremely West in on handicap debut (as is Heros de Romay), whilst Cuthbert Dibble and Supremely West both make just their second start in handicaps, as does Jack In The Box who will be blinkered/tongue tied for the first time today.
We've also got plenty of class movement here with the top three on the card Cuthbert Dibble, Heros de Romay and Supremely West all up one level from Class 4, as is the 13yr old veteran Totterdown, whilst bottom weight Jaminska drops two classes a month after finishing third of six in a Listed race at Taunton. Heros de Romay was also third last time out, having finished 121 in his previous three career runs. Supremely West was a runner-up at Southwell after winning five of hiss previous six outings (inc 3 x NHF wins), whilst our sole LTO winner, Cuthbert Dibble now returns from almost ten months off the track since winning two of his last three.
Current Mood has been off even longer at 404 days (the remainder have all raced in the last seven weeks), but has already won a Class 4, 2m½f Novice hurdle here on soft ground with Heros de Romay's heavy ground course and distance win on his penultimate start being the only other Chepstow success from this group, mind you four of these have never been here before, but all bar Current Mood, Totterdown and Jaminska have already managed to win over a similar trip, according to Instant Expert...
Bashful Boy's record at Class 3 is poor at 1 from 13 and that's the biggest concern from the above graphic. We've three heavy ground winners, of course, which is a positive, whilst Cuthbert Dibble and Supremely West are 2 from 3 and 3 from 3 respectively on soft ground, The place data suggests we focus on the top half of the card which consists of the three I though most likely plus Heros de Romay...
The key to success here at Chepstow on heavy ground has been to be up with the pace...
...with those leading or racing prominently claiming 77.8% of the wins and 68.1% of the placers from just 48.4% of the runners with those willing to set the pace faring best of all, which based on this field's last four outings...
...would be a further blow to Current Mood, Jack In The Box and Bashful Boy. The veteran Totterdown in the most likely pacemaker, but at just one win in four years I can't see him hanging on now up in both trip and class.
Summary
My initial thoughts were that main players here would be Cuthbert Dibble, Supremely West and Jaminska and I've not seen anything to dissuade me. Heros de Romay scored well on Instant Expert and likes to get on with things, so he's also in the mix.
Cuthbert Dibble is the 2/1 favourite with Hills (the only book open at 3.30pm Monday), but that looks short about a horse off the track for ten months, up in class, winless on heavy ground and who tends to be held up off the pace. He might well end up being the best of this whole group and might also win this race, but 2/1 is too short for me and I think the in-form Supremely West from The Shortlist offers much better value at 5/1.
He won by 12 lengths and 5 lengths at Carlisle and Sedgefield in the autumn before finishing second at Southwell last time out, running into one who looks like he might go places. he's 1 from 1 on heacvy, 3 from 3 on soft and has finished 12112 in five starts under today's jockey. I thought he might have been around 4/1 or even shorter, so win or lose I think there's a bit of value at 5's.
Of the other two in the top half of the card, I marginally prefer Jaminska, the market marginally prefers Heros de Romay but with them both around the 7/2 to 4/1 mark we agree that there's little between them and neither are E/W options! After these four at 5/1 and shorter, the other half of the field are 11/1 and longer, but I'm struggling to make an E./W case for any!