Robin Goodfellow storms to September glory
By the middle of the month, September’s naps challenge looked wide-open, with four points separating half a dozen pundits. But one name dominated the second half: Robin Goodfellow. With five winning naps from eight (16-23 September), the Mail’s tipster emerged from the pack to take command. A finishing tally of 16.6 points was good enough to earn a fourth profitable month of 2023 and to secure a five-point winning margin over Marlborough, who finished strongly after a poor start. Fortunatus took third place with 2.9-points.
Glendale, Templegate, Farringdon and Rob Wright all came agonisingly close to claiming profits, but ultimately missed the cut, while Garry Owen squandered a glorious start, finishing with a nightmare run of 11 straight losers.
After a sloppy start (2 wins from 11), Robin Goodfellow recovered with three successive winners (10-12 September) with The Coffee Pod (3/1, York, 10 September) providing the perfect pick-me-up. Subsequent successes included 10/1 Delagate This Lord (Bath, 16 September), Aconcagua Mountain (9/2, Ayr, 21 September), Ayr Poet (4/1, Ayr – where else? – 22 September), Lady Ava (100/30, Catterick, 23 September) and Baltic (5/1, Pontefract, 28 September).
Only one pundit has notched more profitable months in 2023 than Robin Goodfellow. That is Marlborough, who made it five winning months out of nine with an 11.2-point return. But this profit was not easily earned. For much of September, Marlborough was showing a loss, but a barnstorming finish thanks to Hierarchy (17/2, Goodwood, 27 September), Mutasaabeq (11/4, Newmarket, 29 September) and Ghostwriter (100/20, Newmarket, 30 September) wiped out the earlier bad memories.
Although having to settle for second place in the September listings, Marlborough’s lead in the 2023 table has grown significantly. Last month, second placed Postdata trailed Marlborough by 12.9 points. Now the lead is 23.7 points, with Robin Goodfellow the nearest pursuer. Successful in the Napchecker Challenge of 2021, Marlborough is currently the only pundit boasting a profit (9.6 points).
Third placed Fortunatus made a slow start (7.4 points down after ten days), but picked up well with six successes during the next 18 days including 8/1 Significantly (Ayr, 23 September).
Glendale avoided any long losing streaks, but winning SPs tended to be on the low side, hence the 1-point reversal.
Six winners from September’s first 12 naps gave Templegate a strong start, but later results were disappointing. Farringdon’s loss was down to the failure to land a big priced success. Rob Wright, on the other hand scored with 11/1 Urban Outlook at Chester (16 September) but a closing sequence of one win in nine proved costly.
The most precipitous fall belonged to Garry Owen: seven wins from 17 took the Daily Record’s tipsmith into top spot in the table. That, though, was it. Eleven losers in a row and a 2.9-point loss.
To be fair to those tipsters who just missed out on a profit, they were all only a half decent-priced winner away from profit. (And remember all the figures above are based on starting prices. Best-odds offers would have pushed most, if not all, into profit.)
For the third month in a row, Harvester finished on top in the all-tips table with a 9.2-point loss. The Star and the Guardian, who both posted sub-50-point losses were the best placed of the UK-based pundits.
Spotlight and the Star made handsome profits from selections sent off at 20/1 or bigger, while Marlborough finished 44 points to the good with selections priced between 4s and 9/1.
The figures were less impressive for tips below 4/1. Despite strike-rates of up to 38%, no tipster turned a profit on these shorter priced advices. (There's a lesson there somewhere!)
Date Published: 05/10/2023