Credit: Carine06 Flickr
It was a very good day for a very few people at Cheltenham, when despite a couple of tragedies, the Placepot paid out its sixth largest ever dividend.
A grand total of £41,288.40 per unit was paid out, and given that only 16.6 units made it through the day, that means the pot they shared was a stonking £938,888.56.
The day started well for punters as three of the most heavily backed horses in the race finished in the top four, keeping many bets alive going into the second leg, the County Hurdle, where the complete opposite occurred.
Not a single one of the ten most backed horses in the twenty eight strong race managed to place, eliminating vast swathes of punters in one fell swoop. Every horse in the top 4 was priced at 20/1 or higher at the off.
The next leg was just as bad for bettors, with just a single horse from the four most backed managing to finish the race, as almost 50% of all runners were either pulled up, fell, or unseated their rider.
This left precious few units remaining, so even though the final three legs saw favourites or those with shorter odds taking the places, there were hardly any bets left in the running to celebrate, so just 16.6 units shared the cash.
The winners of each race were:
- Leg 1: Soldatino – SP 6/1
- Leg 2: Thousand Stars – SP 20/1
- Leg 3: Berties Dream – SP 33/1
- Leg 4: Imperial Commander – SP 7/1
- Leg 5: Baby Run – SP 9/5 Fav
- Leg 6: Pause and Claus – SP 14/1
It was a very busy day, with sell out crowds and on course turnover up 22% on the previous year, which explains how the pot was able to grow so high.
It wasn’t all good news on the day though, as there were two fatalities in Izita Star, who fell in the County Hurdle and had to be euthanized, and Fairyland who suffered the same fat after receiving a leg injury in the Martin Pipe Handicap Hurdle.