Profits all-round in rosy April
2021-04-30
Reigning Besttipping champion Daily Bargain’s lead at the top of this year’s table increased to more than 22 points, thanks to a strong showing in April. But it wasn’t just Daily Bargain who had cause to celebrate; all the services currently engaged in the 2021 race posted solid profits.
Probets recorded their best month since May 2019 with an 11.4-point haul, which earned second place in the month’s listings. Mark Your Card (8.6 points) finished third ahead of Personal Info Saturday Only (0.9 points) and Personal Info (0.7 points).
April’s return was typical of Daily Bargain’s modus operandi. Of 29 selections, just four were winners. But a lowly strike-rate (13.79%) means nothing when the winners are returned at 16/1, 12/1, 11/1 and 7/1. The month’s yield was a dazzling 21 points (72% return on investment) and pushes the Steve Jones service up to 41 points for the first four months of the year.
Pricewise, Jazzaway (16/1 advice, Punchestown, 27 April) was the pick of the winners with the swag-bag also including Real Advice (12/1 advice, Leopardstown, 11 April) and Count Otto (11/1, Newmarket, 14 April.)
Probets clawed back first quarter losses with a 35% April strike-rate. A sequence of eight winning selections out of 11 between 6 and 16 April was the highlight. This run included two 11/2 advices, Lopes Dancer (Wolverhampton, 12 April) and Chichester (Newcastle, 13 April) along with 5/1 Came From The Dark (Newbury, 16 April). As noted in past reports, this service produces a high number of placed horses. All too often in the opening three months of 2021, these have been second or third rather than first, but April saw a reversal of that trend: 19 selections finished in the first three with ten earning top spot.
There was a lesson to be learned from Mark Your Card’s April return. If you are backing each-way shots at a decent price, scour the internet for bookies offering extra places. In Mark Your Card’s case, an April loss of more than 11 points was transformed into a healthy 7.2-point yield by judicious research. And this was with two horses that finished fifth and two that earned money by coming home in seventh place! As I keep saying, it’s not all about winners.
The four horses in question were Kateson (33/1 advice) and War Lord (40/1) advice, fifth and seventh in the opening handicap hurdle at Aintree on 9 April, and Sir Jack Yeats (33/1) and Relentless Dreamer (100/1), who occupied the same positions in the Topham later the same afternoon.
A monster 7.5-point wager on Gaillard Du Mesnil (1/2, Punchestown, 30 April), Personal Info’s largest bet for some years, was never under any serious threat. With chief danger Bob Olinger a non-runner, the Willie Mullins-trained five-year-old was always in command, winning by two and a half lengths. This win secured a third winning month out of four in 2021, with the promise of more to come as May’s opening bet, Sienna Bonnie (7/4, 3 May) overcame market indifference to register a victory at Bath.
Meanwhile, Personal Info’s Saturday-Only service was also making it three profitable months from four thanks to the wins of Letsbeclearaboutit (4/7, Fairyhouse, 3 April) and Pogo (6/5, Leicester, 24 April). Any Second Now also contributed by earning each-way money when finishing third in the Grand National (10 April).