A resounding victory for punters on day one at Cheltenham featured a huge winner from Essex – but it could have been even worse for the bookies.
Traders in Paddy Power HQ in Dublin were left sweating after a Chelmsford-based punter nearly pulled off the heist of the year!
The online customer had picked seven horses and put them in two different bets – a £20 each-way accumulator, and a £1 Super Heinz (which is a combination of the selections in 240 different ways).
What followed was the stuff of fairy tales. His first six selections – Slade Steel, Gaelic Warrior, Chianti Classico, State Man, Lossiemouth and Lark In The Mornin – all came in to leave the punter sweating over more than £200,000, if Embassy Gardens won in the final race.
The Willie Mullins-trained Embassy Gardens was the 7/4 favourite for the 5.30, and while the punter let his Super Heinz run, he cashed out the accumulator for £36,000. And it proved to be a shrewd move.
Embassy Gardens came home second behind Corbetts Cross, making it an early contender for cashout of the week.
The Super Heinz, meanwhile, would have returned another £49,937 had it come in – but a pay out of more than £14,000 was plenty to cushion the blow.
Paddy Power spokesman Paul Binfield said: “It’s not been an ideal start to the week for the bookies and we’ve lost on the day.
“But it was nice to see one shrewd punter from Essex trouser £50k and we’re happy that our customers have full wallets for the rest of the action with everything to play for.”
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