There is absolutely nothing quite like the feeling of striking a double that is daily pick six or other big accumulator at the competition track, especially when that final horse comes in to complete your once-in-a-lifetime payday. But while there have been some epic wins during the period of horse racing history, few compare to your story that played out this week in the UK as four horses associated with legendary gambler Barney Curley pulled down shocking victories that may have cost bookmakers millions.

Long Odds on Four Horses

The story began on Tuesday night, as odds began showing up for some of Wednesday’s events. There have been four horses in all, each coming off a long layoff to race at fairly long odds. Horses Eye for the Tiger and Indus Valley had been both longshots that are 20-1 while Seven Summits and Low Key were more fairly priced at 7-1. in just about any case, a $1 accumulator bet on all four horses to win could have made a bettor around $13,000 at Bet365, in the event that wagers came in at simply the right time when all four races were on the board therefore the odds were as favorable as feasible.

Estimates of so how much money ended up being lost by bookmakers through the four unlikely winners varied greatly. One spokesman for Paddy energy said that the industry-wide hit could are as great as £15 million ($24.9 million), though others said a more likely figure was in the range of £2 million ($3.3 million).

Some bookmakers, such as Ladbrokes, avoided the largest losses by only posting odds later in your day, though many bettors acquired on the connected horses also as the chances started to fall.

‘We dodged all the morning hours frenzy, but you cannot stop moving trains and we got caught up in a few of it because the day panned out,’ said Ladbrokes mind of consumer PR David Williams. ‘Our decision not to price the Kempton races up until as late as feasible helped protect us through the worst of it and we truly weren’t subjected to any of the business that is overnight a lot of the fancy prices were snapped up.’

Unlikely Winner

Bookmakers begun to become dubious as the odds on all four horses dropped in morning betting. The horse had been bet all the way down to an even money favorite despite the fact that he had not run for 481 days, and had failed to win in any of his previous four races by the time Eye of the Tiger ran at Lingfield.

Sure enough, Eye of the Tiger won his competition. When stewards at the track established an inquiry into the champion, they were told that the horse was now being trained by Dan Donovan, and had formerly been trained by Curley himself. The horse had evidently been injured several times, but came into the race healthy, with Donovan calling him ‘a genuine horse.’

Soon thereafter, Seven Summits would win his competition at Catterick by a length and a half. At race time, he had been bet down to a 9-4 favorite, though that has been partially because another favorite was scratched through the race. Seven Summits was also previously trained by Curley.

The third horse, Indus Valley, was another Donovan-trained runner who had been rushing for the first time in nearly two years. A 4-6 favorite by the race, Indus Valley pulled off a win that is tough.

‘He has constantly shown ability but we were lucky the 2nd just turned it in,’ Donovan stated.

Finally, Low Key was set to race at Kempton, and had relocated from a 7-1 shot up to a favorite that is 7-4. Although his last race saw him finish 7^th of seven horses, Low Key pulled off a win, with trainer John Butler attributing it to the horse being gelded and a drop that is significant course in comparison with past events.

Barney Curley has been a legendary trainer and gambler for years, though he has largely stayed out of the public eye. Curley whom says he wins has been finding ways to beat bookies since at least the 1970s that he gets more of a thrill out of beating the bookmakers than from the money. A similar four-horse success in 2010 netted Curley more than £1 million ($1.66 million).