Brighton owner's horse costs mystery punter £725,000 after Cheltenham flop
Brighton owner Tony Bloom saw his star horse finish third at Cheltenham on Saturday after one mystery punter placed a staggering £725,000 bet on the nine-year-old.
Champion Chase hero Energumene went off as a heavily backed favourite in the rearranged Clarence House Chase. That resulted in one punter putting £350,000 at 4-7 and £375,000 at 8-15.
The Racing Post states that the mystery punter is rumoured to be Bloom himself. Star Sports stated on social media that they stood to lose £400,000 if Energumene had won the six-runner race. However, the Brighton-based bookie prevailed as the Bloom-owned horse finished third behind 14/1 winner Editeur Du Gite and Edwardstone in second.
This is believed to be the latest in a battle between bookies Star Sports and the same mystery punter who it is believed placed £150,000 on Energumene at 100-30 to win last year's Champion Chase at the Festival. On that occasion the punter walked away with £500,000 - but the bookie squared up on the same horse on Saturday.
Owner of Star Sports Ben Keith said that the individual win for the bookie didn't make a difference to the company.
He told the Racing Post: "We play clients over the year and wish no horse ill. It doesn’t really make any difference to us on individual races, there are many big bets. We reported it, though, as it was a high-profile race.”
Bloom has amassed his fortune, believed to be worth £1.3million, from sports betting, playing poker and being an entrepreneur.
It is believed the billionaire was at Cheltenham to watch is horse finish third before flying back to Brighton for his football club's dramatic FA Cup victory over Liverpool. Dave Jolly, the bookmaker’s head of trading, says that this size of bet is often placed with the company but rarely publicised.
"We’ve had similar sized bets before and similar bets on Energumene as well,” Jolly told the Racing Post. “We don’t often publicise these bets, we lay, but it was a high-profile horse in a high-profile race and we’ll always talk to the customer first to make sure they don’t have any problem with us doing so.
"We have to protect the customer in what we do and we work with the Gambling Commission in terms of what’s needed. Obviously if someone is putting bets on of this size then we would have to be sure they can afford to do so and they are aware of what they are doing, and we have a prior relationship with this customer.”
