The Guardian and the Mirror claim January honours
The Guardian and the Mirror take January honours
No fewer than eight napsters posted January profits with The Guardian finishing the month in first position with an impressive 16-point gain. Second, just 1.5 points adrift came West Tip (Western Morning News) with Farringdon of the Morning Star third with a 12.1-point return.
The Scout (Express) claimed fourth with 10.1 points followed by Templegate (The Sun) on 9.1 points, Wise Owl (Belfast Newsletter) with 4.6 points, Garry Owen (Daily Record) with 1.5 points and The Scotsman’s Glendale on 0.9 points.
Eleven of The Guardian’s 30 naps in January, struck gold (38% strike-rate). Along with profit and strike-rate, a handy way of testing a tipster’s merit is to look out for winning and losing sequences; in the case of The Guardian, January’s longest losing occurred towards the end of the month when five successive naps lost. Otherwise the winners popped up with happy regularity with Zolfo (7/1, Market Rasen, 16 January) boasting the best price.
Losing runs of six and later seven naps might have dampened the spirits of followers of West Tip, but it all came good in the end thanks to a trio of winners in the month’s final eight days, On 23 January, Savage Beauty prevailed at Newcastle at 11/1; two days later it was the turn of Made In Italy, successful at Lingfield at 5/1. A further two days on and Egotistic won at Wolverhampton at a massive 14/1. A month that looked destined to end in a heavy loss was transformed into one that produced a 14.5-point yield.
Despite only finding six winners (20% strike-rate), Farringdon secured a 12.1-point January yield, thanks to the former Supreme Hurdle winner Summerville Boy, who returned to the scene of his greatest triumph to win at 10/1 on the opening day of the year. Western Miller was the month’s second big hitter, winning at Doncaster on 24 January at 16/1.
January’s best strike-rate came curtesy of The Scout, who gave 12 winning naps out of 26. Best priced of the dozen was Musical Slave, a winner on the opening day of the year at Exeter at 6/1. Like the Guardian, winners arrived with pleasing regularity – the longest losing run being a mere four days.
Two four-day losing runs during the opening eleven days of January set Templegate off on the wrong foot, but for the remainder of the month, The Sun’s napster was in fine fettle, comfortably wiping away those arrears to end with a decent yield, and a 31% strike-rate. In terms of prices, the best of the month’s winners was the popular Zolfo (7/1, Market Rasen, 16 January).
Wise Owl’s 4.6-point gain was built around three nice winners: Django Django (Newbury, 15 January), Starlight Romance (8/1, Kempton, 20 January) and Admiral’s Secret (5/1, Leicester, 28 January).
Turning to the overall tips table, Newsboy of the Mirror made a sensational start to the year, posting a 30% strike-rate on all tips recorded in January – 715, to be exact. The end result was an impressive 49.8-point profit to sp. This cavalcade of winners was headed by two 14/1 shots, Atwaar (Wolverhampton, 15 January) and Brother Bennett (Fontwell, 26 January). There were also two winners at 11s, two at 10s, one at 9/1 and four at 8s. For a newspaper tipster to end the month with any kind of profit to sp is commendable, to finish with a near 50-point yield is remarkable.
Finally, this month, there’s an exciting new feature on the Napchecker website. All races are now listed in time order (accessed through the ALL RACES tab). Not only does this page allow you to identify the best odds on offer from various bookies and then place bets, but it also reveals which tipsters are on which horse. You can check the tipsters recent form and even watch the race.
Date Published: 07/02/2020