Flooring Porter

Flooring Porter  Trained by Gavin Cromwell in Navan, Co. Meath, Flooring Porter is a 7-year-old gelding, by leading National Hunt sire Yeats, who has the distinction of being the first horse since Big Buck’s, in 2012, to win back-to-back renewals of the Stayers’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. Foaled on May 12, 2015, Flooring Porter made his racecourse debut as a 4-year-old, already gelded, in a maiden hurdle at Cork in July, 2019. He opened his account with a comfortable 7-length win in a similar contest at Bellewstown in August, 2019, and also won on his handicap debut, when stepped up to 3 miles for the first time, back at Cork two starts later.

Having officially improved by 17lb, Flooring Porter made further progress when winning, albeit narrowly, at Gowran Park on his first start of the 2020/21 season. By December, 2020, he had officially improved by another 14lb, but still wasn’t finished. An easy 12-length defeat of The Bosses Oscar at Navan necessitated a further 14lb rise in the weights, but Flooring Porter proved that performance was no fluke by winning the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown on his Grade 1 debut. So on to the Cheltenham Festival, where he made all the running to win, unchallenged, by 3¼ lengths.

Fast forward to 2021/22 and Flooring Porter made an inauspicious start to the season when falling at the second-last flight, when apparently going best, in the Lismullen Hurdle at Navan in November. He was subsequently beaten 2 lengths by Klassical Dream in the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown and, consequently, started second favourite behind that rival in the Stayers’ Hurdle on his next start. Nevertheless, Flooring Porter jumped well, as he had the previous year, and once again made all the running to win by 2¾ lengths. Klassical Dream was soon beaten and faded to finish fifth, beaten 5 lengths.

Sir Anthony McCoy

Sir Anthony McCoy  Sir Anthony McCoy, knighted in 2016 for services to horse racing, was simply the greatest National Hunt jockey of all time. Born in Moneyglass, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, McCoy rode his first winner on the British mainland, Chickabiddy, trained by Gordon Edwards, at Exeter in 1994, when conditional jockey to the late Toby Balding. By the end of the 1994/95 season, he had ridden 74 winners, enough to ride out his 7lb, 5lb and 3lb claim and, in fact, a record for a conditional jockey.

Having won the Conditional Jockeys’ Championship, McCoy proceeded to dominate National Hunt racing for the next two decades, winning the Jump Jockeys’ Championship every year until his eventual retirement. During a lengthy spell as stable jockey to Martin Pipe, which lasted for nearly a decade and yielded 1,154 winners, 100, 150, or even 200 winners became the norm, rather than the exception, as McCoy racked up championship after championship. In fact, in 2001/02, McCoy rode 289 winners in a season, beating the previous record held by Gordon Richards.

In 2004, McCoy accepted a retainer, reputedly worth £1 million a year, from leading owner John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus and, in his famous green-and-gold silks, continued his phenomenal career. His lowest seasonal total in the last decade or so of his career was 140 winners in 2007/08, a season which, by his own admission, was ‘turned upside down’, by a fall at Warwick in January. Damage to the vertebrae in the central section of his spine required an operation to insert metal plates, and cryotherapy, but he was still back in the saddle in time for the Cheltenham Festival in March.

All in all, McCoy rode 4,358 winners, including 31 at the Cheltenham Festival, and won most of the major races in the National Hunt calendar. His high-profile successes included the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice, the Champion Hurdle three times, the King George VI Chase and, of course, which he famously won, at the fifteenth time of asking, on Don’t Push It, owned by J.P. McManus and trained by Jonjo O’Neill. Having spent over two decades limiting himself to a single meal a day and sweating in hot baths to maintain his 5’10” frame at, or around, 9st 10lb, McCoy, unsurprisingly, gained over two stone in weight following his retirement.

Big Money Winner

Big Money Winner  In 2014, Wolverhampton became the first racecourse in Europe to install the Tapeta surface but, even so, it would be fair to say that the Dunstall Park track rarely attracts much attention. However, it did so on January 6, 2016 when, at an ordinary midweek meeting, an anonymous Southampton man went through the card and won £245,000 for his £10 stake.

The 34-year-old motor mechanic made his selections based on their market position and, more importantly, their names. He said, ‘I chose the horses based on their names. I looked at ones who were favourites and selected them at random based upon names that I liked.’ On a day when six out of seven favourites won, he also did himself a favour by taking early prices about his selections when he placed the bet the previous evening; at starting price, his £10 seven-fold accumulator would have yielded ‘just’ £80,000.

The punter admitted that his windfall was more down to ‘brilliant luck’ than any system or selection technique. However, after watching his first six selections – Whitecliff Prince, Artful Mind, Mr Boss Man, Oakley Girl, Perfect Cracker and Bank Of Gibralatar – prevail, his nerve was tested by his final selection, Ohsosecret, who only led inside the final 50 yards of the closing 5-furlong handicap and was all out to win by a head.

Nevertheless, win she did, sparking riotous celebration. Reflecting on his good fortune, the man said, ‘I was watching the results come in and after the first three had won, I started texting the wife. When the seventh one won, I was jumping around the place. It’s the biggest high I have ever had.’

Lucky Punter

Lucky Punter  According to the song, ‘Old Christmas comes but once a year’ but, for one anonymous Sky Bet punter, the festive season started several weeks early in 2017. On December 7 that year, the unnamed individual staked £2.30 each-way on a five-fold accumulator on National Hunt racing at Leicester and Wincanton. Four of his five selections – Arthington (3/1), Vocaliser (18/1), Lagavara (9/2) and Dontmindboys (4/1) – were at Leicester, where his only really anxious moment came in the fifth race on the card, the Lubenham Mares’ Handicap Hurdle. Sent off 4/1 second favourite, Lagavara drew clear with 11/4 favourite Daytime Ahead from the final flight but, after a ding-dong battle with the runner-up on the run-in, eventually prevailed by the narrowest possible margin, a nose.

Thankfully, the gallant gambler was spared any such drama elsewhere, including in the Watch Racing UK On BT TV “Junior” Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race at Wincanton; in that race, his final selection, Acey Milan (7/2), was sent off a well-backed 9/4 second favourite and quickened clear in the closing stages for a comfortable, 9-length victory. In so doing, the Anthony Honeyball-trained gelding landed a jackpot payout of £23,631.36.

Interestingly, none of the winning selections started favourite, a fact that didn’t escape Michael Shinners, Racing Odds Manager at Sky. He said, ‘I’ve got to take my hat off to this customer, despite him causing plenty of glum faces in our trading rooms today, that’s for sure! To take on any favourite and be counting your profit in one race is hard enough, but to do it in all five is just top-class punting.’

44-fold accumulator!

44-fold accumulator!  Sometimes it ‘pays’ to highlight the very opposite of a favourite to show whats possible in the racing world! The Republic of Kazakhstan is famous for many things, including oil, natural gas, wild horses and, of course, Borat. It would be fair to say that gambling is not high on the list of attractions, but winners are winners wherever they appear. One such winner, who made the headlines in 2021, was a 44-year-old inhabitant of Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, by the name of Mukhazhan.

The intrepid Mukhazhan who, by his own admission, bets exclusively on football, staked 100,000 Kazakhstani Tenge, or approximately £175, on an all-correct 44-fold accumulator, which returned approximately £1.53 million. Having backed a raft of selections, none of which were offered at decimal odds greater than 1.48, or fractional odds just shy of 1/2.

However, domestic punters hoping to emulate Mukhazhan should be aware that 1xBet, as a company, is prohibited from operating in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, despite offering unlimited accumulator bets, in terms of the number of selections involved, 1xBet apparently credited the eye-watering sum immediately, despite the final match taking place in the evening.

Mukhazhan admitted that he was, understandably, nervous as his bet progressed. He woke his wife, in part for moral support, but he was ultimately delighted to keep his promise to provide financial support for the homeless animal charity of which she is an administrator. Mukhazhan said, ‘…the debts of local veterinary clinics have been settled, this is great joy.’ He added, ‘Not even the win, but the fact that they were able to help. People call and they just cry from happiness, from the fact that this happened.’