Bookies rue Aintree 'bloodbath'
Bookmakers were left reeling after suffering a succession of results that gave punters first-day honours hands down at Aintree today.
The well-fancied winning foursome of Grey Abbey (7-2), Faasel (11-4), Katarino (100-30) and Fota Island (100-30) broke layers’ hearts both on and off-course.
The victory of Faasel took over £100,000 (€145,000) out of the ring and wins for Katarino and Fota Island cost similar amounts.
“Figures show that it’s the worst day’s trading for us since the Cheltenham Festival of 2003,” said Balthazar Fabricius of Ladbrokes.
“We think the industry is £10m (€14.6m) in the red today, which is great news for punters. It sets up a real betting bonanza for Saturday.
“The worst results were Faasel, Grey Abbey, Katarino and Fota Island. Even though Turpin Green was returned at 14-1 it was backed first thing by trade clients.
“It was a bit of a bloodbath. After the first race, when Rule Supreme went over and Westender as well, we thought we were going to be okay. But the punters have had a great day – blood on the rails.”
It was a similar story with Coral, whose representative Simon Clare said: “In terms of early prices we ducked a few, but fundamentally there was nothing we could do as these were well-fancied horses.
“In every one of our betting shops, punters will have picked up shed-loads of money thanks to the popular Grey Abbey, Faasel, Fota Island and Katarino.
“Those four in the middle of the card gave us a battering. It’s certainly the worst day of the year and up there with the worst in history.
“It will have cost the industry somewhere between five and 10 million pounds on early estimates. It’s a bad day to start National week. If it’s going to happen we would rather it happened on a Thursday than Saturday. It was relentless today, with punters just playing up and playing up.”
The BBC’s betting pundit Angus Loughran agreed, saying: “It was the best day of the year for punters. The layers have taken a right hammering.”
Damian Walker of totesport added: “It was a very bad day. Faasel in particular was a bad result. Mephisto getting beaten was the only real good race for us.”
