Biggest Horse Racing Bets That Paid Off

Horse race betting has been a popular past time the world over for centuries. In New Zealand millions of dollars each year go through betting sites and bookies books, bet by hopeful punters looking for the big win. Throughout history there have been some incredible bets which did pay off, and changed the lives and fortunes of the punters forever.

Stableboy Turned Millionaire

In 2012 an Irish stable boy named Connor Murphy was hard at work preparing a string of his boss’s horses for the Cheltenham Festival. The Cheltenham Festival is a jump racing festival held in the UK each year. Billed as the Olympics of jump racing, the festival attracts horses from all over the world.

Connor Murphy believed so strongly in his boss’s horses that he placed $75 on all five of the horses winning. This, of course, was an incredible long shot, but to the amazement of the 29 year old his accumulator came through, netting him a whopping $1.5 million.

The Great Donerail Upset

In the 1913 Kentucky Derby the field was made up of a number of great horses and some lesser known ones. One of the lesser known colts was a three year old by the name of Donerail. He was a rather bland looking bay who had no real race record to mention, and was thus billed at odds of 91-1.

Donerail stayed with the forerunners through the race, and to everyone’s surprise including his jockeys, overtook all the best horses right at the end to not only win the race but also clock up a course record. It was one of only ten wins for the horse throughout his entire career, which makes it even more noteworthy. A number of thoroughly over excited punters collected some serious winnings that day, much to the bookies dismay.

Dettori Vanquishes Ascot

One of the biggest racing days in terms of upsets the world has ever seen was in 1996 at Britain’s Ascot Festival. If online betting NZ sites had been around then, punters would have won- and lost- epic amounts. Jockey Frankie Dettori won all seven of the day’s races against odds of 25000 -1. To the horror of the bookmakers, the jockey seemed unstoppable, clocking up win after win, culminating in a glorious first in the main race of the day on Fujiyama Crest who was billed at 16–1 at morning bids.

One lucky punter, Darren Yeats, somehow got it in his head to back Dettori through all of his races despite his wife’s warning, and watched in mounting hysteria as the jockey sailed home first race after race. In total he left the track almost a million dollars richer that day, which went a long way to placating his wife.

A Dream Come True

In a small betting shop in Yorkshire, Britain in 2008 an unknown man placed a passing bet of only 75 cents on eight horses in an accumulator. The odds of getting the bet right were a massive 2 million to one. He went home, not thinking much more about his bet. Unbeknown to the man, the bet was possibly the luckiest one in the history of horse race betting, with all eight horses coming in just as he had predicted. The first horse of the day to win was called Isn’t That Lucky, with the appropriately named A Dream Come True ending the day for the ecstatic punter. He walked off with an incredible $1.5 million that day from only 75 cents.