Paddy Power Millionaire Chase: "It's still sinking in" says £1m winner

Our Paddy Power Millionaire Chase winner was understandably over the moon to find himself £1m richer after Langer Dan came home first in the Imperial Cup at Sandown this afternoon.

Geoff from Bootle pocketed that life-changing sum after months of anticipation with our huge giveaway forced to be rescheduled by poor weather three times.

But that made Saturday’s win all the sweeter.

📺Here's the moment Geoff realised that Langer Dan and Harry Skelton had won him the grand prize in our Millionaire Chase competition 👇

As they say, incredible scenes😮 pic.twitter.com/TX9SeZnuX0

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) March 13, 2021

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Speaking to Paddy via zoom after the all-important race, lorry driver Geoff said: “It’s amazing what it’ll do for our life. We lost our son eight years ago to cancer, he was just 18 years old.

“This is a life-changing amount of money and it felt like it was just meant to be. I love racing but I couldn’t tip a winner. I couldn’t pick my nose normally!

“I felt like the coolest man in the world until about midday and then I was massively nervous. I couldn’t stop shaking. The feeling even now is incredible. It’s still sinking in.

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“Langer Dan was incredible coming up to the last fence. He didn’t look like he could be beat. That was an amazing feeling, being able to watch that.

“Ideally now I’d love to go to a three-day week on the lorries now. The wife is trying to spend the million already so I need to keep her in check. We’re going to go on a big holiday now when they let us first. We can’t wait.”

In case you have no idea what we’re on about, here is a quick recap of what the Millionaire Chase is all about – we’ve been running qualifiers over the last few months leading up to the big event and all our lucky sweepstake spot winners were paid £/€10,000 just for making it into the final.

Every customer who made it through was then allocated a horse for today’s contest, with Geoff then taking home a further £/€990,000 after pairing up with the winner and seeing Harry Skelton steer his hope to victory.

The Millionaire Chase was originally intended to run on New Year’s Day at Cheltenham but poor weather cancelled the meeting, while our two rearranged dates were also scuppered by rain and snow.

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That means we had to adapt once more, with the vital race taking place over hurdles in Saturday’s Paddy Power Imperial Cup at Sandown.

Geoff won’t have minded one bit about the disruption though, and he’s promised to buy all his fellow finalists drinks at Cheltenham in November.

Spokesperson Paddy Power said; “It’s incredible to be able to give Geoff his own Gold Card into the Millionaire’s Club, especially given what he has been through.

“Derek Acorah was previously the most famous person from Bootle, but Geoff can take his spot now. There’s nothing spooky about being a millionaire”

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And it doesn’t end there for the winning connections of Langer Dan. Paddy Power have also put up a £50k bonus for Langer Dan if he goes on to win a race at the Cheltenham Festival next week.

The five-year-old was slashed in price for the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, so Paddy may well have to loosen the purse strings once more.

Just in case you didn’t hear, we’ve boosted our presence at Prestbury Park this year with sponsorship of the Stayers’ Hurdle and the Festival Plate while there is also the inaugural Mrs Paddy Power Mares’ Chase to look forward to – and we cannot wait!

All that’s left to say is congratulations to Geoff and all of our lucky qualifiers who made it through to the Millionaire Chase and bagged £10k regardless for their efforts