Horse Racing Bets: Who were the Cheltenham winners?

Cheltenham Betting Review – The aftermath

While multi-millionaire owners like J.P. McManus and Michael O’Leary have had a wonderful week at the Cheltenham Festival – the colours of the latter named chairman of Ryanair were carried to victory a remarkable seven times – it’s nice to see the man on the street have a once in a lifetime memorable experience.  

And this year there seems to have been plenty of huge scoops for small staking punters, life changing in many cases…

£3 Placepot Bonanza

Our favourite is the £96,263 won by Doncaster resident Patricia Ryall who placed a £3 Placepot at the course as part of her day’s entertainment.  

Her six placed horses later on a day of upsets and she collected £96,266.10 for her fun bet which equates to betting odds in excess of 32,000/1!

Paddy Power’s Trimmed Profits

Over in Ireland, in a small town called Trim, lightening struck twice as two punters won big in the same Paddy Power betting shop on the same day.  

The first placed a €5 each-way accumulator on his online betting account (funded by an over the counter in-shop deposit). Once his winnings and ‘cash out’ offer exceeded €100,000 he duly made off with his winnings which turned out to be a prudent decision according to the Irish firm.

The second punter backed winners Shattered Love (6/1), Delta Work (10/1), Balko Des Flos (14/1), Penhill (12/1) and The Storyteller (7/1), in a 50 cent each-way Lucky 63, which cost €63 (c.£56).  Sadly his last selection failed to win but made the frame meaning a potential €908,623 win was replaced by a €108,076.19 payday.

Any Second Loss

And it was the last leg of another Cheltenham bet which gave a Ladbrokes Northampton shop punter and agonising near miss on the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival.

The unnamed customer placed a £40 each-way accumulator bet on all seven of the day’s Cheltenham races and watched the first six win. However the Ted Walsh trained ‘Any Second Now’, the 5/1 favourite, failed to make the frame in the closing race meaning a potential £1 million in winnings was replaced by a total loss.

A winner overall for the firms?

Overall it is believed a record £900,000 was gambled on the Cheltenham 2018 Festival and despite a number of fancied horses winning on the first three days of the meeting, the final day’s results were very much in the bookmaker’s favour.  

At the end of the Festival it is noteworthy that shares in Ladbrokes had risen by more than 1.5% and William Hill’s share price also increased by half a percentage point.