Caryl Williamson Crowned 2018 TAB Champion Tipster

Caryl Williamson of Australian Associated Press (AAP) has held on to win the 2018 TAB Champion Tipster Challenge after a thrilling contest to complete Day 2 of The Championships at Royal Randwick Racecourse.

The star of the day for Williamson was Who Shot Thebarman, a narrow and popular winner of the Schweppes Sydney Cup (paying $13.70 and $2.70 on the NSW TAB), which, combined with her remarkable effort to tip four winners on Day 1 of The Championships, helped her to a final tally of $498.

Seven Network’s Ryan Phelan was the standout on Day 2 of The Championships, with four winners (Serene Miss, Catchy, Unforgotten and Alizee) plus a smart selection of Gailo Chop for a place strategy against Winx in the Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes to see him finish runner-up on $421.

Brad Davidson (Sky Racing) was third on $376.40, Ray Thomas (Daily Telegraph) was fourth with $364.40 and Andrew Webster (The Sydney Morning Herald) was fifth on $307 to round out all those tipsters who finished with more than $300 in the bank from a hypothetical $10 each-way bet placed on the NSW TAB on each of the 25 tipsters’ runners across 12 races over the two weekends.

Williamson, a long-time astute judge and prolific writer for AAP, is now 2018 TAB Champion Tipster, with TAB kindly donating $5000 to the winner’s charity of choice, which is BeyondBlue.

“I’m very happy to win for such a good cause in BeyondBlue and while I couldn’t match the four winners on Day 1 of The Championships, I was luckily able to rely on Who Shot Thebarman – he never lets me down,” Williamson said.

“Thanks to all those involved, the sponsors, the organisers and my fellow tipsters – it was a lot of fun.”

Final Leaderboard after Day 2 – TAB Champion Tipster Challenge