Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Horse Racing
Ben McCrum
One unlucky Cheltenham punter has been left feeling ill after one horse stopped him from winning a breathtaking amount of money.
The third day of the ever-popular Cheltenham horse racing festival is underway and already there has been plenty of drama.
On day one, the highly-backed Constitution Hill failed to reclaim his title in the Champions Hurdle after falling late in the race, while Wednesday saw popular pick Jonbon make an error that cost him the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
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However, there is one other horse that has caused heartbreak for an optimistic punter who put together an incredible acca that came close to a massive payout.
Every year, Cheltenham fans are always tempted to add just one more horse onto their already optimistic accumulator and almost every year it comes back to haunt them.
And that is exactly what happened to one fan on the very first day of the festival, as his massive six-fold acca was let down by just one horse.
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Posting on social media, racing blogger Stephen Power met up with the fan, named Scott, to show off the punter's accumulator for all six races on the first day and, amazingly, he had picked the winner in all but one.
If Scott's six-fold accumulator had come through, he would have taken home an incredible £195,000 from a stake of only £10.
What makes things even worse for the unlucky punter, is that the one horse to let him down was actually the one with the shortest odds heading into the race.
After The New Lion took home the victory in the first race of the day at odds of 3-1, Scott would have no doubt been confident in Ballyburn, who entered the race as a 4-7 favourite.
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However, a jumping error late in the race meant that the Irish horse could only finish the race in fifth, putting an early end to Scott's bet.
But Cheltenham wasn't quite done dishing out punishment to Scott yet, as his remaining four picks, one of which was 20-1 to win, went on to cross the line first.
When asked how he felt about the loss, Scott admitted that he felt sick to lose out on so much money, but reassured Power that he had still made some money on single bets during the day.
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