One of horse racing’s most famous jockeys would have to be Frankie Dettori. He has been the Champion Jockey three times in his career and he has ridden more than 500 winners in group races. He is an honourable and extremely decorated horse racing jockey of which his win at the 1996 British Championship Day was the biggest.

In 2015 he was named as the World’s Best Jockey at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and people like Lester Piggot still describes him as the best jockey in English horse racing. He has experienced a few stumbles along the way, but he still remains a true racing celebrity as well as a national treasure.

Early Years

Born in Italy on 15 December 1970, Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori already found himself in the prominent spheres of horse racing society. He was born to Gianfranco Dettori who was an avid horse racing jockey himself. At the age of 12 Lanfranco started showing interest in his very first horse riding event following his birthday. His father had bought him his very own pony which he rode quite often. At the age of 13 he became a stable boy and an apprentice jockey, and thereafter he went to Great Britain to become a more trained stable jockey.

In 1990, Dettori earned his first big title when he became the first teenager since Lester Piggot to ride 100 winners. His first win came in at the age of 16 which took place in Turin in 1986. His first British victory took place in the following year. He continued picking up the pace and soon before long he had made quite the name for himself.

Going Through the Card – and Bankrupting the Bookies

In 1996 at the British Championship Day at Ascot racecourse, Dettori achieved the incredible feat of winning all 7 races in a single day – called “going through the card” – something that made him an instant legend amongst punters and bankrupting at least one bookie in the process and costing others millions of pounds. One of the bankrupted bookies, Gary Wiltshere, lost over £800,000 that day as punters piled on more and more of their cash on Frankie’s horses as the day went on and the unfortunate layer was forced to sell his house, car and most of his possessions to pay everything back.

It is a feat that had very few jockeys have ever completed and the combined odds in the morning of Dettori winning all seven races was around 240,000 to 1. It has been compared to a golfer birdying all 18 holes on a golf course or a footballer scoring five consecutive hat-tricks. 

Scandal Strikes

However, in the late 90s scandal struck Dettori as he was investigated for using illegal substances during the racing season. He admitted that he used diuretic drugs in order to keep his weight down. He also admitted to using an even wider range of drugs on a regular occasion before it had been banned in 1998. He underwent numerous drug tests which confirmed the extensive use of these drugs and the regularity by which Dettori used them.

A Close Escape and Life Away from Racing

Despite this spat between Dettori and the Jockey Club, he received an honorary Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2000. Thereafter he decided that it was time for him to give the competitive world of horseracing a break. In the same year he was in a plane crash whilst on his way to Sussex. The pilot was killed but Dettori escaped with a fractured right ankle and an injured thumb.

He starred in the BBC quiz show A Question of Sport, but soon retired in 2003 as the team captain. The reason for this was that he was stung by a question regarding his retirement from horse racing. Since that quiz show he has found his way back to professional horse jockey racing and started immediate training. In 2004, he competed in his first championship since his retirement and he was awarded the British Champion Jockey award. In 2006 he experienced another bout of bad luck when thieves broke into his house and stole some of his gold medals and a gold trophy he had won in Japan.

One of the only English races Dettori had not yet won was the Epsom Derby. However, he completed and won this race for the first time in 2007 on board Authorized. The day after he had won this race he won the Prix du Jockey Club on Lawman, notching a memorable double derby. Dettori would capture his second Epsom Derby eight years later on Golden Horn in 2015.

The Face of Yoghurt

His face soon became popular and commercial once again. Soon after he completed his double derby, he became the face of Jockey yogurt. This was sold across Europe and was especially popular in France. By adding his face to the campaign, sales shot through the roof during the years that followed.

In 2012 his past run-ins with drugs surfaced again when he failed a drug test in France. In December of that same year he was suspended from professional horse racing as he tested positive for using illegal substances. This prohibited substance was believed to be cocaine, something far worse than his previous contraventions. He released a statement through his lawyer in which he apologized and said that he realized that he had let down the sport, its participants, and its fans.

In 2013 he pursued more commercial aspects when he entered the eleventh series of Celebrity Big Brother – he was voted off fifth. After his 6-month ban was lifted, he continued to ride again professionally, starting with the Epsom Derby in 2013. A week after he started, he won his first race yet again.

Still Going Strong 

He has been a retained rider for Godolphin Racing, but soon quit this to become a freelance rider. He has signed contracts with other endorsers, but it would seem like he prefers to ride solo. He has since then competed in many different events all over the world from Britain, to Europe, to middle-eastern countries such as Bahrain. It is clear that he is not yet ready to hang up his shoes for a final time.

Standing in at 1.64m, Dettori is the perfect build for a jockey. He currently lives with many others in Stetchworth near Newmarket in Suffolk. He is married to his wife Catherine, and together they have 5 children: Leo, Ella, Mia, Tallula, and Rocco. He is a typical English boy when he is at home, supporting his favourite football team Arsenal all the way. He also has an insane passion for food and in 2004 he opened a little restaurant in London: Frankie’s Bar and Grill with chef Marco Pierre White as partner. Together these two have opened 3 other restaurants in their names all over the world.

With such an effusive personality, exhilarating style and brilliant career, it is no wonder that Frankie Dettori is perhaps the best known jockey in British racing – a true racing superstar. 

Interested in getting some free tips for horse racing? We have put together a detailed guide of the best ones we have found – and you can read it here. 

We are going to take a look here at Equine Investments, one of the most renowned horse racing tipsters out there.

The service is run by a guy called Laurence Lambourn, a professional gambler himself who was banned by the bookies so set up the Equine Investments tipping service instead in 2002.

We are going to do a quick review of it here rather than our usual three month trial as the service is closed to new members so not much point doing an in-depth review of a service that the vast majority of you won’t be able join!

However, there is a waiting list and places do become available occasionally so it is probably worth describing what the service is all about and whether it is worth joining the waiting list.

So  we will break things down and look at the various aspects of the service.

Results

We have been following Equine Investments for approximately the last 5 years and can vouch that the results published on their website are accurate.

And what results they are! 

They have made over 1700 points profit since starting tipping in 2002. So in other words if you had been following them at £100 per point since they started you would currently be over £170,000 up!

That is with an almost unparalleled return on investment of 30%, which is simply amazing over such a long period.

Every year has been a winning year and some of the better years have seen ROI of over 50% for the year, which we have barely ever seen before in the world of tipping.

Odds Availability

With results as good as those you are probably thinking there must be a catch. 

Well you’d be right – there are in fact two catches.

The first catch is odds availability. 

When we first started using the service back in 2009/10, the prices of selections would get hit in quite significantly, but it was just about possible to still get close to the advised price if you acted quickly.

However, as time went on and the success of the service grew and grew – and members were no doubt increasing their stakes as they built up considerable banks – the prices just got hit in too much.

It became very difficult to make a profit from the service and so Laurence decided to change the way they operated.

Firstly he tried separating things into two different types of selections – with the main account bets and then “shortlist” bets which were not quite as strongly fancied but still worth backing.

However, that didn’t seem to quite work and so a new setup was established – which leads us onto the next section…cost.

Cost

The second “catch” if you like with Equine Investments is the cost. It used to be around £1200 for the year, which meant it was only a service for the very serious player.

But then Laurence decided – because of the odds availability problem mentioned above – to reduce the number of members and run the service in “cycles” rather than years.

What this meant was that you would now pay a fixed fee for a pre-determined amount of profit and when that was reached you would have to pay again for the next cycle. 

The cost of each cycle is £825 and for that you get £3000 of profit to £100 stakes, or 30 points profit in other words.

So if you could get the advised prices, that would be around £2175 profit per cycle once fees were deducted.

Do a couple of cycles per year and you are talking a nice 4 grand or so of profit. And of course some people will bet more than £100 per point so will make more than that.

Two Groups 

To try and protect prices, the service was also split up into two groups when the cycle approach was adopted.

Group 1 is made up of 15 members and bets only in high class races at weekends and in festivals, where prices are likely to be more solid, with greater liquidity and less liable to be influenced by a small group of people.

Group 2 is made up of 30 members and bets in all types of races, with a higher volume of bets than Group 1.

Our own experience was that we found Group 2 still suffered from the same price availability problem as previously and it was tough to make a profit.

However, Group One works very well and although there aren’t that many bets, prices hold up decently and you can normally get the advised price or very close to it.

Conclusion 

There is no doubt that Equine Investments has one of the strongest tipping records in the game and with over 13 years of results has proved a very clear edge over the bookies in the long term.

In the world of tipping though, sadly you can become the victim of your own success, as we have seen with our review of Hugh Taylor.

And this has unfortunately been the case with Equine Investments as well, who have seen prices hammered to a level that it is tough to make a profit with the main service unless you are able to act lightening fast and have a wide range of bookie accounts available to you.

However, Group One which only bets in high class races works well and prices hold up strongly. So although there aren’t many bets – usually just 2 or 3 per week – there is the potential to make it worthwhile.

With a price tag of £825 for a cycle (which so far has averaged about 6 months to be completed) this will not be for everyone though and is really only suited to the high rollers.

So there we are, we hope that has given you a good idea of how Equine Investments works and if it is a service for you.

As April begins and Spring gets underway it’s time as ever for the sporting world’s attention to turn to a small corner of Georgia in the southern United States.

Yes it’s Masters time and Augusta awaits the best golfers in the world for the first major of the season.

Travelling up Magnolia Lane this year will be a host of players hoping to add the Green Jacket to their collection of titles.

Until three years ago, no Australian player had ever won the Masters. But this year, few will have better chances than two Aussies who are in red hot form going into Augusta.

Here we have a look at their chances in greater detail, plus have a look at the best picks from the rest of the field.

Great Scott

First up we have Adam Scott, the winner of the Green Jacket in 2013, who heads to Georgia in arguably the best form of his career.

The 35 year-old has two wins this season already, at the Honda Classic and WGC Cadillac Championship, as well as a second place finish at the Northern Trust Open.

Whilst his iron play has been sublime and his driving as impressive as ever, the real improvement for Scott this season – perhaps surprisingly – has been in his putting.

The worry for Scott was that being forced to dispense with the long putter at the start of the season due to new rules introduced by the game’s governing bodies would lead him to struggle greatly on the greens.

However, the reverse has been true and the Aussie has putted markedly better with the short stick than he did last year with the broom-handled putter.

The stats show that the Queenslander has moved from 157th in strokes gained putting last season to 42nd this season – a massive jump.

Watching Scott putt this season you might even go far as to say he is looking solid over the shorter putts, which is certainly not something you would have said over the past few seasons.

The fact that his putting is improved is great news for fans of Scott as the rest of his game is nothing short of outstanding at the moment.

Leading the Tour in strokes gained, second in strokes gained tee to green, seventh in greens in regulation, 11th in driving distance and the Fed Ex Cup leader, there is little doubt that Scotty is in total control of his game heading into the Masters.

In addition to his win, Scott has a second place finish and two other top tens to his name at Augusta, so certainly knows his way around the place.

At current odds of 12/1, don’t be surprised to see the likable Aussie capture his second Green Jacket on Sunday. 

Die Another Day

The tournament favourite and rightly so, Jason Day has won 6 of his last 13 starts, a phenomenal record dating back to the Canadian Open last year.

Previous to last year’s USPGA win, Day had struggled greatly when in contention in majors, admitting to becoming nervous and slowing down the pace of his play noticeably.

However, breaking his duck with that win has given the Aussie a huge boost in confidence and taken the rather large proverbial monkey off his back.

Moving to number one in the world is justification for the hard work and dedication Day has shown, improving his game markedly in recent years.

Not only is he prodigiously long off the tee, but his short game is amongst the very best in the world – as he showed in his battling wins at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC Dell Matchplay recently.

With confidence sky high, Day must feel he has an edge over both Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, who have struggled for form this year by their own high standards.

An excellent record at the Masters that includes second and third place finishes as well as two other top 30 places show the 28-year old’s affinity for the fairways of Augusta.

Although odds of 7/1 look short, remember that Day has won just under half the events he has entered in the last 8 months – that is the kind of form Tiger used to show at the peak of his powers. And he would regularly go off at 2/1 or less for majors. 

Best of the Rest

There are many with good chances of triumphing at Augusta, as one of the strongest fields of the year assembles in Georgia.

Bubba Watson has a fantastic record at the Masters, with two wins and a game seemingly tailor made for the course and starts at a very reasonable 12/1. With a win at the Northern Trust earlier this season and some solid form, it would be surprising if big-hitting Bubba wasn’t in the mix come Sunday.

Few players in the history of the tournament have better records than Phil Mickelson. With three wins and 12 other top-ten finishes, Lefty has demonstrated time and again his love for the fairways of Augusta. 

Although winless this year, he did come close at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this season and has been talking very bullishly about his game following a change of coach at the start of the season.  Phil must be backed each-way at 20/1, particularly with bookies offering up to 8 places.

If you are looking for an outsider, then Patrick Reed could be worth an interest at 50/1. Leading the tour in top 10 finishes this season, with 7 in 11 starts, Reed has been the model of consistency and there is no doubt he has the confidence in himself to go ahead and win a major. 

As the Racing Post’s resident Pricewise tipster, Tom Segal has gained a reputation for being one of the best informed horse racing tipsters in Britain over the last 10 years. His expertise is matched by his numerous winning streaks. Segal is probably most famous for a ten week all-win streak in 2005 with fans and punters taking millions off the bookies in the process and securing him legendary status as a tipster. 

Bringing Down the Bookies

That run involved a string of long-odds winners including Courageous Duke at 8-1, Zeitgeist at 14-1, Another Bottle at 14-1, Sergeant Cecil at 20-1 and Ice Planet at 8-1. In classic tongue-in-cheek style, the Racing Post declared following that run:  “Sorry! We’re full of remorse as the world’s leading tipster makes a dent in the bookmakers’ half-year results.”

That reference in the Racing Post was regarding an announcement by William Hill that their half year profits were down 6% and that it was due to one man – Tom Segal, following his glorious winning run that year. Some bookies have even been heard to declare a hatred for him.

A Nerd Tipster

Segal presents himself as something of a nerd tipster. He works from his home in Reading and presently provides daily racing tips before the race for all major televised races in his Pricewise column in the Racing Post. The simple idea behind Segal’s mind set is to give the average person a tip at long odds that represent value at the early morning prices.

Although he is immensely popular amongst punters, there is a downside to Pricewise’s tips: they are in fact so popular that prices will crash dramatically after Segal publishes his tips. So making a profit in the long term is likely to be difficult, unless you are razor sharp in getting your bets on before the bookies slash their prices.

Segal credits luck as a part of his winning strategies and all horse racing gamblers would agree that luck does play a significant role in winning but no one can be as “lucky” as Segal. His analysis is a combination of experience, the use of all the information about any race that is available, and direct personal inspection of the animals and the track.

Starting Young

Segal’s love or horse racing began in his youth. His home in Esher was so close to Sandown Park that the thrill of the chase got into his blood early. He planned for a career in racing early in life and the practical side of the economics was assisted by his degree in management from Cardiff University.

Perhaps surprisingly given his sterling record, Segal proclaims himself to be a small wager person – usually just £50 to £100 per race. He doesn’t come across as someone who relishes the “thrill” of betting, but rather one who enjoys the intellectual challenge of studying form and getting one over on the bookies. For him, the idea of giving a tip that thousands of people at the track and at home will back and win money on is the ultimate satisfaction.

Segal’s Winning Approach

Pricewise approaches all races as a unique event. He considers all factors that may impact the potential for any horse to win a race. Past performance, a horse’s present state of health, the state of the track, the horse’s weight, the jockey’s weight, and a multitude of other factors are part of Segal’s scrupulous investigation to find winners.

In the in-depth look at the history of Pricewise and the approach of its current incumbent, The Secrets of Pricewise: The World’s Number One Tipster Revealed, Segal talks about the importance of the jockey and trainer in horse racing and how these factors are consistently overlooked by punters and the market. He says just the fact that certain trainers like John Gosden are running a horse in a particular race is a tip in itself and they are often twice the price they should be.

He also attempts to account for the unknown in his tips. Accommodations for weather, track conditions, and the history of falls on a given track in certain conditions add to the veracity of Segal’s predictions. Segal leaves as little to chance as possible.

A Racing Regular

Segal is a regular attendee at many of the races that he makes prediction for. He claims that nothing works better in predicting winners than looking at the horse before the race, chatting with riders, and seeing the field yourself. An added advantage of seeing the race in person is seeing each bookie’s tactics and their change in presentation depending on the horse they are backing.

In a moment of introspection that is rare for tipsters, Segal claims that the added pressure of being paid to pick winners for other people is stressful and demanding. It is rare to find that sense of responsibility to the bettor in a tipster.

Segal is the first to admit that he does not pick a winner every time, but success rate is still extraordinary. He wins the most in races where the odds are greater than three to six and in races where the odds are more than 11 to 16 to 1. His winning percentage for long shots is one of the best in the United Kingdom.

A Tipping Pioneer

He may not be the only online tipster around but Tom is the first that has made betters, bookies, and odds makers sit up and take notice. He has shown the way to successful betting through meticulous research combined with looking at factors that are often overlooked by regular punters.

Undoubtedly a pioneer in giving punters value tips and making the horses pay off for more people than ever before, Segal deserves his reputation as one of the UK’s top tipsters. Experience, diligence, and a desire to take the money out of odds makers and bookies’ pockets have made Segal a racing institution – the ultimate little man’s tipster.