ONE lucky punter is over €20,000 richer after winning a bet on a 100/1 Willie Mullins outsider at Cheltenham.
One of the biggest shocks on Friday saw Poniros win the JCB Triumph Hurdle at Prestbury Park.
An Irish bookie – AK Bets – offered even longer odds of 150/1 on the horse to win, prompting one punter to lob £100 on him.
And in a massive shock to the system, Poniros – which is owned by Brighton owner Tony Bloom – came out on top.
AK Bets tweeted a photo of the slip to Twitter, revealing that the unknown punter had won £18,200, with the bookie remarking: “Unbelievable Jeff”.
Fans in the comments were similarly taken aback, and theorised that Bloom himself had been behind it.
One said; “Did Tony Bloom put the bet on?” while a second posted: “Ah ffs .tony bloom put that bet on”
A third said: “Is that Tony Bloom’s bet ?”, a fourth commented: “Bloomin’ sickener” and a fifth said: “Bloomin eck!”
If Bloom had, indeed, been behind the brave bet, he will have gone against advice from trainer Willie Mullins.
The Irishman, who was once again crowned top trainer at Cheltenham, was as shocked as the result as the rest of us.
And he admitted to ITV: “I didn’t expect that!
“You asked me did Tony Bloom back him. If he did, it wasn’t on my advice!
“We were hoping that he’d run well and be a nice horse for next year.
“We bought him in October, we schooled him, then gave him a break.
“We felt it would be better to drag him in from the field and get him ready for Cheltenham and that’s what we did.
“I didn’t expect any more than a nice run, we had a lot of horses in the race and they all came here with the same plan.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw him flying through the middle.
“Just unbelievable!”
The four-year-old was one of 11 runners in the race under Mullins’ umbrella, three of which pulled up before the finish.
And Nico de Boinville – who rode runner-up Lulamba – made light of this fact during his post-race interview with ITV’s Matt Chapman.
He said: “Look, he’s a really nice horse going forward to next season.
“He’s run a fantastic race…fair play to Willie [Mullins] for putting 11 in.”
