The Quest For a Big Win

A cousin of mine takes part in a monthly horse racing tips competition alongside a few others run by my brother. It's just a bit of fun, is free and has a small cash prize each month so keeps people interested. This Saturday he somehow managed to get a 40-1 shot up (Henllan Harri at Sandown in the 3:35 Gold Cup Handicap Chase), and that was just the odds with the bookies, so it was possibly 100-1 + with Betfair. It's not every day of the week you get a winner at those odds, and of course I'm sure he's kicking himself for not having a bet on it.

Even though I'm definitely one to look for a big priced outsider win (hadn't you guessed from the URL of the blog!), I do often find myself more likely to pick out a few selections at around the 20-1 mark or thereabouts because you do need at least the semi occasional win to keep the momentum going motivation wise. For either myself, or those who keep up to speed with my bets, if I was always fixating on the 'rare as hen's teeth' odds range, I'd likely have an awful lot of lean spells.

That said, sometimes there are horses that, huge priced as they are, you can't help but at least think they have half a hope (and of course taking 'price to chance' into account, that's all you need at crazy odds). Those are the wins you remember, the real stand outs over the span of your betting life.

Of course many big wins in racing, aren't single bet outsiders as such, but instead accumulator bets with huge combined odds with at best an outside chance of winning. Not to say that they don't happen though. Case in point on Friday afternoon (28th April) one lucky Coral punter received the biggest payout in their history with his five horse accumulator, placing a paltry £19 on five Punchestown, Ireland bets and walking away with a mind boggling £823,000 - a fact he didn't even recieve until checking his account on the early hours of Saturday after a night out. A night to remember! The Vegas slots 'casino level win' of bets, something to muse over while you're playing high RTP Slots.

One of his selections (Canardier) was an outsider in its own right at 33-1, so was a brave selection to even include in an accumulator to be honest. His other selections were 10/1 Das Mooser (3.40 Punchestown), 9/2 Woodland Opera (4.20 Punchestown), 7/1 Definite Ruby (4.55 Punchestown), 10/1 Bacardys (6.05 Punchestown) and the bet consisted of 5 £3 4 fourfold accumulators and one £4 fivefold.

What's the biggest priced horse that's romped home for you (or biggest combined odds of your biggest winning acca)?