Cunningham

Donovan Cunningham (Ultraquest) has emerged winner of the 2007 CTL/Markham and Champion Betting Tipster's competition with a total of 308 winners - eight clear of closest rival Melton Williams (Sunday Herald).

Cunningham, who also won the popular Track Price Plus competition at the back of the Track and Pools as The Clockman, led for most of the way to win comfortably in the end.

Popularly known as Mark, Cunningham was winning this competition for the first time on his first try. He was given the Ultraquest slot at the beginning of last year by defending champion Mark Orelue, who decided to call it a day after winning two years in a row.

Cunningham earned for himself the $80,000 cash prize from the sponsors, while Williams secured $30,000 for having finished second with 300 winners.

It was a close for third, with veteran tipster Errol Dunn (The News) digging deep on the final raceday to catch and beat former champion Orville 'Clarkie' Clarke (The Gleaner) in the last race of the year.

Dunn totalled 296 winners to secure $20,000, one ahead of Clarkie. Rounding off the top five was Jimme of The Star with 290 winners.

Bi-monthly quarterly prizes of $20,000 each were won by Williams, who spotted 55 winners over the last two months, and Dr. Paul Wright (KLAS) with a hefty $3,419.00 plus quantity in the in-the-money category for that period, having napped the 11-1 outsider RUMOUR HAS IT and COMMON D at 7-2 on November 3 to race into an impressive plus $3,728.00, enough to seal the issue.

Despite this, Dr. Wright was unable to win the overall monetary category as he ended up with minus $2,710.00, the best of the 16 tipsters. The unclaimed $130,000 prize money for that section will be added to the 2008 purse. This means that the tipster good enough to finish the year with a plus category will receive a whopping $260,000.