It had been more than 2 months since the Scoop6 pool had been won when the 18th of March 2017 rolled around, so the total prize pot had built to £614,245.
Even so, people didn’t seem to be in the mood for it as they had been with other similarly sized pots, and only 153,752 tickets were in the competition. For context, twice this amount would not have been unusual.
Those who skipped it would be kicking themselves, as the punters were helped by a string of favourites winning the day at the racecourses involved in the Scoop6: Kempton Park, and Uttoxeter.
The first race was not one of them though, because a horse aptly named Excellent Result came in first at 8/1, knocking out 93.7% of the tickets right away.
That left 9,693 units for race 2, but since more than 60% of punters had backed the favourite, American, who went on to win, 6,128 of them made it through to race 3.
It was another 8/1 shot that crossed the line first in race 3, and this caused some problems for punters as 83.2% of them had backed other horses. It was a tough race to call in any case, with 19 runners on the field.
The next race was no daisy either, with 13 runners, but when the favourite, Fortunate George stormed home, he opened the door for 241 units to continue on to race 5 – just two races away from the big win.
Interestingly though, despite another favourite, Max Ward, winning the 7 horse race, only 41 of those 241 units had backed him, so 83% of the remaining tickets ended up on the bookies’ floor.
Still, 41 units in the final race meant a strong chance of finding a winner.
It was another tough one to call, with 20 horses taking part, but only 13 of them had been backed, so it was still possible for the Scoop6 to roll over for another week.
However, 2 punters had backed the relatively unfancied Chase the Spud, priced at 11/1. The horse won, and the £614,245.06 prize pool was split into two dividends of £307,123, and our winners also had a shot at the £230,572 Bonus Fund the Saturday afterwards too.
And it was won. We don’t know if it was shared or not, but at least one of the winning ticket holders managed to add a further 6 figures to their total winnings.