There is nothing that can compare with the feeling of striking a double that is daily choose six or other big accumulator at the race track, especially when that final horse comes in to complete your once-in-a-lifetime payday. But while there were some epic wins over the course of horse history that is racing few compare to the story that played out this week in the UK as four horses connected to famous gambler Barney Curley pulled down shocking victories that may have cost bookmakers millions.

Long Odds on Four Horses

The story began on evening, as odds began showing up for some of Wednesday’s races tuesday. There were four horses in all, each coming off a layoff that is long race at fairly long odds. Horses Eye of the Tiger and Indus Valley had been both 20-1 longshots, while Seven Summits and Low Key had been more fairly priced at 7-1. A $1 accumulator bet on all four horses to win would have earned a bettor around $13,000 at Bet365, if the bets came in at just the right time when all four races were on the board and the odds were as favorable as possible in any case.

Estimates of so just how much money had been lost by bookmakers through the four unlikely champions diverse significantly. One spokesman for Paddy energy said that the hit that is industry-wide happen as great as £15 million ($24.9 million), though others stated an even more likely figure was in the product 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 once the odds started to fall.

‘We dodged a lot of the morning that is early, but you can’t stop moving trains and we got caught up in a few of it while the day panned out,’ said Ladbrokes mind of consumer PR David Williams. ‘Our choice never to price the Kempton events up until as late as possible helped protect us through the worst of it and we certainly were not subjected to any of the over night business where a lot of the fancy prices were snapped up.’

Unlikely Winner

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

Soon thereafter, Seven Summits would win their competition at Catterick by a length and a half. At race time, he had been bet down to a 9-4 favorite, though which was partially because another favorite was in fact scratched from the race. Seven Summits was also formerly trained by Curley.

The third horse, Indus Valley, was another Donovan-trained runner who ended up being racing for the very first time in almost two years. A 4-6 favorite by the race, Indus Valley pulled off a tough win.

‘He has constantly shown ability but we were lucky the next just switched it in,’ Donovan stated.

Finally, Low Key was set to race at Kempton, and had moved from a 7-1 shot to a 7-4 favorite. Although his last battle 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 significant drop in course when compared to past races.

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