It was a day of favourites in May of 2017, when the Scoop6 was taken down just 5 weeks after the last big win.
The races on the card were held at Haydock Park and Ascot, and one very lucky winner was saved by their faith in the wisdom of crowds.
The first race was a bit of a disaster for punters, because of the 64,141 units that entered, just 3,743 had backed Mia’s Storm. This 10/1 priced horse was the 5th most fancied going back the numbers backing other horses in the 16 strong field, but represented just 5.8% of the punters.
Luckily for them, a horse called Appeared won the next race. They were the favourite too, saving a good 35% of those who remained for race 3.
This was another bad race for bettors, despite only being a 9 strong field, because it was 8/1 shot, Desert Encounter, that won the day, backed by only 224 of the 1,344 units that had made it this far.
So halfway through and down to just a few hundred remaining tickets, things were not looking good. Incredibly though, the favourite won two of the remaining 3 races.
John Constable saved 56 betting slips from the bookmakers shop floor in race 4, but it was an apparent 11/1 no hoper that triumphed in race 5. The horse, Tisbutadream, was priced 7th of the 9 horses that ran, and understandably only 2 people had backed it.
If the chances of 2 of those two units making it through race 5 were slim, the chances of 1 of them picking the correct horse in race 6 were even slimmer. That’s because there were a huge 24 runners in the final race, so people were preparing for a rollover.
However, the favourite, Fastnet Tempest won race 6, and as luck would have it, this was the horse our punter had opted for. This secured them a huge £235,626 win as the whole prize fund was paid out in a single dividend. Whoever the winner was would have to make do with their quarter million though, as despite having a crack at the bonus fund the following week, they didn’t manage to win it.