Tag Archive for: The Shortlist

Racing Insights, Tuesday 14/02/22

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It's Valentine's Day on Tuesday and I'm just back off a long/heavy weekend, so I'm not exactly feeling the love. Hopefully the racing will provide a spark for me and 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...

...where Hoganville & Statu of Liberty are of 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 Lingfield
  • 3.55 Ayr
  • 7.30 Newcastle

Both of the interesting Shortlist horses run in 'free' races, so let's quickly see if either are worth backing, starting with Hoganville in the 3.55 Ayr, an 11-runner, Class 4, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over a left handed 3m on good to soft ground...

HOGANVILLE arrived from Ireland last summer with a 0 from 9 record for Paul Nolan in Ireland, but he has since finished 1113 in his four starts for George Bewley with his second win coming over course and distance in late October. This run of form took his mark from 96 to 112 and he was beaten by 13 lengths in to third last time out under today's weight; a mark that might ask a little too much of him. He'd had a month's rest, though, so who knows?

Instant Expert suggests that he's one of the few who should relish the conditions...

...and those four at the top may well be where the winner comes from in a race that in the past has rewarded those getting on with it more than those who want to be waited with...

This field's recent races have looked like this...

...and of the four from Instant Expert, I'd have to omit hold-up horse Nicandeasy, leaving me with Apple Away, Hoganville & Leostar to consider in my summary later.

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Race 2 sees top-weight Statu of Liberty make just a second handicap run in the 7.30 Newcastle, an 8-runner, Class 5, 3yo A/W handicap over a straight 5f on standard to slow polytrack...

STATU OF LIBERTY was a winner here in a 6f maiden three starts ago for Brian Meehan, but finally made her handicap debut at Southwell last time out almost four weeks ago. That was her seventh career run and first for new handler Michael Dods, but could only finish 6th of 7, beaten by almost 4.5 lengths.

She's down in trip and has been eased 3lbs by the assessor, but she'd still have room to improve if she wants to win here. That said, she's the main eye-catcher in another sea of red on Instant Expert...

...where Colors of Freedom also has some good numbers, especially over this trip. Based on recent outings...

I'd imagine the field will have chase to Statu of Liberty down to win, as she appears to be one most likely to set the tempo of the contest in a race that has favoured front runners in the past...

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So far so good for Statu, then and the draw has her in stall 2 with only Tantalus inside her, but sadly the higher drawn runners have done much better here...

...but pace is more important than draw here over a straight 5f, as shown by the pace/draw heat map...

Summary

In race 1, we got it down to Apple Away, Hoganville & Leostar and they're priced at 5/2, 6/1 and 8/1 , from which only Leostar is worth backing E/W (keep an eye out for firms paying 4 places). All three are capable of making the frame, but if pushed for the winner, I'd fancy Apple Away to 'pip' (sorry!) the other two.

As for the evening contest at Newcastle, Statu of Liberty has plenty going for her, but I do fancy the top two in the market Sugar Hill Babe (5/2) and the 11/4 Colors of Freedom to beat her, but Statu currently trades at 9/1, so is of E/W interest.

Racing Insights, Tuesday 07/02/23

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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...

...where the 2.45 Market Rasen contest is of 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 this trio from the Black Country...

  • 6.00 Wolverhampton
  • 7.00 Wolverhampton
  • 8.30 Wolverhampton

And although the clash of two Shortlist runners at Market Rasen appeals to me, they're both likely to be fairly popular in the market and the middle of our three 'free' A/W races looks an interesting affair where I'd guess the top six or seven in the market will be covered by about 4 or 5 points. That race is, of course, the 7.00 Wolverhampton, an 11-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a left handed 7f on standard tapeta...

And as well as expecting a close market, the 2nd to 8th runners in the weights will only have a 3lb spread with two of them coming here off the back of a win last time out : Keyser Soze and Jilly Cooper. Of the rest, only Amber Island, Larado, Master Zoffany and Revolutionise have a win in their visible form line, although Tylos has been a runner-up in each of his last two.

Tylos actually drops down from Class 2 to run here, as do top-weight Moai and Farhh To Shy with Larado dropping in from a Listed race last weekend. As with four class droppers, we also have four stepping up, all from Class 4 and they are LTO winners Keyser Soze and Jilly Cooper along with Revolutionise and Counsel.

Moai runs in a handicap for just the second time (15 lengths, last of 10, a fortnight ago!), whilst Tylos now wears cheekpieces for the first time to hopefully get a bit more of him in a bid to land a second course and distance success. Amber Island, Master Zoffany, Jilly Cooper and Revolutionise have also all won over this 7f  trip here in the past and all bar top-weight Moai and bottom weight Perseverants have scored over this distance somewhere, but the C&D winners are the only previous course winners.

Amber Island returns from the longest break, but shouldn't have got too rusty in a 6-week rest, whilst Larado is pitched back in three days after a Listed race and 8 of the 11 have raced in the last 20 days. We know that most of these have won at today's trip, but not many have scored at Class 3 on the A/W, according to Instant Expert...

...but a few of them have good place numbers at this level...

...somewhat (if not totally) allaying my fears about both Amber Island & Keyser Soze only having 1 from 7 records at Class 3. Elsewhere Amber Island was third over C&D LTO and remains 6lbs higher than her last win, four starts ago, whilst Revolutionise (who looks solidly if unspectacularly consistent on IE) is 5lbs higher than his last win. The ones obviously catching the eye from above are Tylos, Master Zoffany and Jilly Cooper, three of our course and distance winners.

If we look at past 11-runner contests over 7f here at Wolverhampton, our Draw Analyser says...

...stalls 1 to 7 are the best place to run from, whilst the Pace stats from those same races suggest...

...that leader/prominent runners are twice as likely to win those further back in the pack and this is further highlighted by the pace/draw heat map...

Although stalls 1 to 7 were favoured on the draw stats, the heat map above does tend to imply that pace is more important than draw, so let's now look at who might (based on recent evidence) be the ones racing in the upper half of the field...

And whilst not all runners run the same way every time they turn out, I'm fairly confident that Larado will be trying to blast out of stall 6 in a bid to make all, whilst Keyser Soze is generally a slow/poor starter. And for more recent runs, here's how the field's last two races have panned out...

...which does suggest that Jilly Cooper is the one most likely to chase Larado.

Summary

Three of the course and distance winners caught the eye on Instant Expert : Tylos, Master Zoffany and Jilly Cooper. Jilly Cooper comes here in the best form of any of this field, having finished 1252731 over the last four months. That run includes three course and distance efforts with results of 131 and she's just 3lbs higher than the last two of those. All of which makes Jilly Cooper very much the one to beat here for me.

Both Tylos and Master Zoffany hold good chances of making the frame, as indeed do Farhh To Shy and Amber Island, but it would be Jilly Cooper that interests me most here. Only hills are open for this race at the moment and they go 9/2 about the filly, which is actually a good point longer than I expected. E/W punters might want to wait until SkyBet, Paddy Power and/or Unibet open up, as they're all paying on the first four home.

Racing Insights, Tuesday 31/01/23

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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...

...where at least the first five are worth a second look.

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

  • 2.35 Newcastle
  • 2.42 Limerick
  • 3.45 Newcastle
  • 4.00 Ffos Las

...and as Shortlist Horse Fortified Bay runs in a 'free' race, I'm going to look at the 2.35 Newcastle, a 7-runner, Class 3, 5yo+ handicap chase over a left-hand 3m (after rail movements) on soft ground...

Fortified Bay won last time out, but all bar Castle Rushen (serial placer) and Wowsham (possibly weakest in the field) have won at least one of their last five and the two who are winless in five both won six races back. The Shortlist horse steps up in class after that win 16 days ago and he's the only course and distance winner in this field. Top-weight Morning Spirit drops in class and he's one of just two others (French Paradoxe being the other) to have already won at a similar trip, but we've no other track winners aside from Fortified Bay.

We've nothing new to report regarding surgeries, equipment, yard changes etc, but Wowsham hasn't raced for almost 20 weeks, but his rivals have all been out in the last 40 days and the class rising 11 yr old Fortified Bay is 3yrs older than most of the field.

MORNING SPIRIT has made the frame (9 times) in almost half of his 19 outings but has fared much better over hurdles, although he did win a Class 3, 3m1f, soft ground chase at Carlisle in November. He struggled off this mark LTO and probably needs to come back down in the weights to win again.

CASTLE RUSHEN never raced at all for 20 months prior to appearing at Wetherby in December and unseating his rider upon his chasing debut, but did finish 2nd of 9 here over 2m4½f next/last time out and that Wetherby race is the only time in his nine races that he hasn't finished in the first three home, winig three times and was placed at Listed & Grade 2 over hurdles.

WOWSHAM showed little in six Flat/AW runs prior to winning one of nine over hurdles. Hasn't raced sine mid-September when last home of five, beaten by 68 lengths at Navan and doesn't inspire confidence on his chase debut.

FRENCH PARADOXE has finished F11F in his last four over fences and was 8 lengths clear when falling at the last at Ffos Las just before Christmas. If he gets round today, he has an excellent chance of a third chase win, but will his jumping hold up?

FORTIFIED BAY was off track for 19 months from early May 2021 and was pulled up on his first two runs back (late Nov at Haydock and Boxing Day at Wetherby), but took advantage of a low mark of 117 to win by 10 lengths at Kelso 16 days ago. This is tougher up in class (+1), trip (+2f) and weight (+8lbs).

OLD PAINLESS is a former PTP who didn't do much in three efforts over hurdles, but won by 14 lengths on chase debut just before Christmas and was a runner-up next/last time out, despit going up in class. trip and weight. Up another 6lbs here, though and asked to go further than any of his other five starts under Rules.

HOUSTON TEXAS won three staying chases at Carlisle in a row last year, but struggled to 6th of 10 next time out and since then, has raced just once over hurdles, where he was only 5th of 8. Gets weight all round, but he looks second best of his yard's two runners here behind Castle Rushen

Instant Expert gives us the lowdown on the field's win & place records under similar conditions...

and past similar contests here at Newcastle have favoured those up with the pace...

...which based on the following...

...would appear to make life tougher for Castle Rushen and Houston Texas.

Summary

It looks like a three-horse race to me, between Castle Rushen, French Paradoxe and Old Painless, but none of them emerge from the analysis scot-free.

On form, French Paradoxe has fallen twice in his last four outings and he scored weakest of the three on Instant Expert, He does, however, have the advantage on pace, where Castle Rushen looks the one with ground to make up. Castle Rushen also doesn't win often enough, but is generally good for a place. As for Old Painless, he's now 13lbs higher than his last win and has never raced this far before and with French Paradoxe also considerably higher in the weights than his last win, this could well open the door for Castle Rushen to grab a first win over fences at the third attempt.

Racing Insights, Tuesday 24/01/23

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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!

Sadly due to postponement of so much racing, there are no qualifiers this Tuesday. We do still, however, have our daily list of 'free' racecards, but that has also been badly affected...

  • 12.40 Down Royal
  • 1.00 Exeter
  • 1.25 Leicester
  • 6.00 Southwell

...leaving us with a 20-runner maiden hurdle and an A/W maiden! Neither appeal to me to be honest and with just one mainland UK meeting set to go ahead, I'll swerve the maiden and take a look what should be the best on the card, the 7.00 Southwell. It's a competitive-looking, 7-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a straight 5f on standard tapeta...

My initial thoughts were that it's a 3-horse race between (in card order) Vespasian, Hiya Maite and Kim Wexler, but let's see what we can find.

Vespasian won five starts ago and has made the frame in his last two starts without winning, but Hiya Maite, Kim Wexler and Murbih all have a win and a runner-up finish from their last two with Kim Wexler our only LTO winner. All of that trio step up in class today with the latter pair (Kim Wexler and Murbih) up two classes and Hiya Maite up one.

The top three on the card are winless in 11, 10 and 7 races respectively, but Tolstoy drops in class here and has been noted as a fast finisher. All bar Strong Johnson have raced in the last four weeks, but he has been off for just over 15 weeks, during which he has moved yards and had a wind operation. Aside from the bottom three on the card who are all course and distance winners, he's the only other to have won at this 5f trip and none of the top four on the card have won at Southwell.

Strong Johnson is also the only one yet to win on the A/W, he's one of four previous Class 3 winners and one of two never to have raced here at Southwell before, according to Instant Expert...

...whilst those numbers filtered into A/W runs only look like this...

Murbih is the interesting one to emerge from Instant Expert and he's in decent form as noted at the top of the piece. He has made the frame in half of his 10 A/W starts, winning twice overall and finishing 30312 in five visits here. he receives weight all round and is currently making more appeal to me than Vespasian.

Southwell's tapeta is still fairly 'new' and as such we don't have as much pace/draw data as we do for other tracks, but what little we do have on the draw surprised me a little initially...

Stall by stall analysis doesn't reflect such a great high to low bias, though...

And that's reassuring to me, as I believe there shouldn't really be much in the draw over a straight 5f and that it's the way you approach the race that is key. Most (not all) 5f sprints favour those setting the pace and in that small sample above it has certainly been the case...

...and the resultant pace/draw heat map suggests that mid to highly-drawn leaders have the best chance...

*the high draw mid-div 100% record is from 1 horse

So, let's check the field's most recent outing to try to work out who might set the pace...

...and it certainly looks like they'll be hard at it from the start.

Kim Wexler & Strong Johnson are in stalls 3 & 4 with Murbih in 5 and Vespasian widest in 7. Vespasian probably edges it here, but other aspects of the toolkit analysis suggest Murbih would be a better bet of the two.

Summary

I started out with Vespasian, Hiya Maite and Kim Wexler uppermost in my mind, but I've arrived at a point here I think Murbih would be a better option than Vespasian. This means That I'm going to rule both out, because I don't think Murbih beats Kim Wexler. They were first and second home here over course and distance with Kim Wexler prevailing by a length and a half off equal weights. Murbih has been raised a pound for that run and KW is up 5lbs but now has an in-form 5lb claimer in the saddle, so I think the race's only mare still holds Murbih.

So that's Kim Wexler in my top 2 along with Hiya Maite, who is also in good form, only up one class as opposed to KW's two, he scored well on Instant Expert and is drawn high. The only possible issues are that he's 7lbs higher than his win two starts ago and that he might struggle for position with at least three or four getting first run on him.

Should be an interesting tussle, but I think 5/1 about Kim Wexler is a tidy price. Murbih is 15/2 with bet365 and they're paying three places, so he could be worth considering from an E/W perspective.

Racing Insights, Tuesday 17/01/23

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Fontwell was a washout on Monday, so figures crossed for some action on Tuesday where our free GOLD offering is the Shortlist, 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, but please refer to our User Guide for further information.

This usually brief report looks like this for Tuesday with a couple of races of interest...

...and this free list is complemented by the following 'races of the day'...

  • 2.50 Clonmel
  • 3.00 Chepstow
  • 7.00 Southwell
  • 8.30 Southwell

And I suppose with two of the three Shortlist horses running in a 'free' race, I should be focusing on the 3.00 Chepstow, where Emmpressive Lady and Come On Gruff will take on eight others in a Class 3, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over 2m3½f on soft (heavy in places) ground...

None of these managed to win last time out, but Come On Gruff did at least make the frame, beaten by little more than half a length after a three mile slog at Kempton. Conversely Emmpressive Lady was the only one of these to fail get round on their recent outings, although she had entered that race seeking a hat-trick. Come On Gruff won three and five starts back and New Found Fame won four back on debut, but the rest of the field are winless in five.

He now makes just a second handicap appearance, as does top-weight Iamastar who is sporting first-time cheekpieces and a tongue tie after being well beaten on his UK debut two months ago at this grade. Speaking of class, Gladiateur Allen , Kateson & Ballyellis all drop a class, whilst Come On Gruff moves the other way from Class 4.

Most of this field have won over a similar trio with top-weight Iamastar and bottom-weight Blacko the two exceptions, but only Kateson has won here at Chepstow, having prevailed over 2m4f some 50 months ago.

Eight of the field have raced in the last eight weeks, but Emmpressive Lady's last outing was eleven months ago, whilst Ballyellis hasn't been sighted since August 2021. The 10 yr old could be excused for being a bit rusty, but he did win over 2m at Fakenham 22 months ago coming off a break of 14 months, so his layoff might not be the negative you'd expect and with two wins and a place from four on soft ground, he might be a surprise contender here.

The Instant Expert stats for this field show that all bar Iamastar have at least one win on soft/heavy ground, we've got half a dozen previous Class 3 winners and as per above 8 distance winners, but just to have won here at Chepstow...

The stats suggest that Emmpressive Lady & Alnadam are proven in the mud and the former probably makes most appeal of all ten on that graphic which also highlights that the bottom four in the weights all now carry at least 10lbs less than their last win over hurdles, whilst both Come On Gruff and Alnadam are rated at least half a stone higher than their last wins.

Our pace analyser says that leaders make the frame more than any other approach, but they are often beaten by prominent runners sitting in behind them primed for a run...

...as 42% of placed prominent runners go on to win, but only 18.2% of leaders hang on. One in three mid-divisional running placers have gone on to win, which is better than the 29.2% of hold-up horses. As we log each UK run, we can now see how this field have approached their last four races...

And based on the above, I'd expect Kateson & Blacko to set the pace with Ballyellis & Come On Gruff the prominent chasers. Mid-division is where we'll probably see Alnadam, Emmpressive Lady and Gladiateur Allen with New Found Fame & Forecast our hold-up horses. I've purposely left Iamastar out of those assumptions, as I don't know enough about his running style to formualte an assumption.

Summary

After the above, I fully expected Come On Gruff to be the favourite at around 5/2, which he is at 4.30pm with Bet365, meaning that Hills' 10/3 might offer some good value at the sharp end of the market. He's in decent enough form, scores well on Instant Expert and has a good pace profile for this race and I'd expect him to be the one they all need to beat. Our other Shortlist runner, the only mare in the race, Emmpressive Lady, will need to come from a bit further back but I'd expect her to be involved late on and should be good enough for a place, but I'd need more than the current 11/2 to tempt me into an E/W flutter there.

If there was to be an E/W option, then Alnadam at 17/2 might provide it. He hasn't tackled hurdles since winning over this trip at Hereford 22 months ago on soft ground and has spent that time getting beaten over fences, but he now reverts to the smaller hurdles 8lbs higher than that win, but some 2lbs lower than his most recent win (over fences 11 months ago).