Sprinter leads the Besttipping marathon

2019-01-31

Sprint Specialiser, a recent addition to Besttipping earned top spot in the January table with a 7.9pt yield. Personal Info finished second, posting a tenth consecutive month of profit, with the same firm’s Saturday-Only service third. Steve Jones’ Daily Bargain finished fourth ahead of First Favourite and Sandbets.

Wolverhampton proved to be a happy hunting for Sprint Specialiser with three of January’s five winning selections occurring at the West Midlands track. These included Foxy Boy (7/1, 19 January), Captain Ryan (11/2, 7 January) and Santafiora (6/1, 2 January) but the month’s best return, the 15/2 advice Moonraker, was secured at Southwell on the first day of the year.

Sprint Specialiser’s yield was achieved with a 16% strike-rate. Looking back, strike-rates of more than 30% are not uncommon for this service, which augers well for the future.

Personal Info’s remarkably high degree of consistency is well-known to followers of Besttipping. Last year was the eighth profitable year of action since 2008 and 2019 has started in similar fashion; a 2.7pt gain was the tenth consecutive profitable return. Eight winning selections were advised from 11 races with successes including: Howling Milan (15/2, Newbury, 16 January), Ah Littleluck (7/2, Navan, 19 January) and Rock Bottom (9/4, Wolverhampton, 11 January).

The same level of consistency is evident in Personal Info’s Saturday-Only service. A profitable January (two winning selections from three races) means that 16 of the last 19 months have produced profitable yields. Furthermore, 2018 was the fifth year of profit out of five for Saturday-Only, a record that is only equalled by one other service, Mark Your Card.

The wafer-thin margin between profit and loss was apparent in the experience of two other Besttipping services in January.

Firstly, Daily Bargain missed out by an agonising half a point at the end of a month in which 15 selections (50%) finished in the first three. Had Champarisi (8/1) found a little more when beaten a neck at Newcastle on 6 January, we would be talking in terms of a healthy profit. Another three selections came off second best, and eight finished third. The three winning selections were Taceec (14/1, Wolverhampton, 7 January), Zip (13/2, Newcastle, 8 January) and Star Ascending (6/1, Wolverhampton, 21 January).

First Favourite were also extremely unfortunate to miss out in January. The small loss of 2.1pt was the result of a tragic event at Newbury on 16 January when the Gary Moore-trained Le Precieux suffered a serious injury when appearing to be cruising to victory in a novice chase.

These examples demonstrate the importance of taking a long-term view of betting. Long sequences of near-misses and horse injuries are two of the many vagaries make betting on horse-racing such a challenge. The only way to insure against these and other woes is to look ahead; over the course of a year luck will even out.

Sandbets were also unlucky to miss out, posting a modest 3pt loss, from 104 selections. The average SP was 6/1 and the strike-rate above 21%. Once again, just a winner or two shy of a handsome profit. Successes included two 15/2 shots – Little Palaver (Wolverhampton, 16 January) and Sandfrankskipgo (Lingfield, 18 January).