Last Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup produced one of the shocks of the season to date as 90/1 shot Knight’s Choice stormed home late to score by a short head. Without a win in his 10 previous outings, beaten at odds of 200/1 in an event of just under a mile at the 2023 edition of this meeting, and yet to race over any further than 1m4f, those backing the outsider required a vivid imagination and a healthy dose of optimism.
Away from the lacklustre form of the horse, there were snippets of hope lurking in his connections. Joint trainer Sheila Laxon (formerly the driver of a double-decker bus in Dover) won the 2001 edition with Etehreal, whilst Robbie Dolan’s father was part of the Dermot Weld team behind the Melbourne Cup success of Vintage Crop. Tenuous logic, maybe, but those who placed their faith in Knight’s Choice were richly rewarded.
Ladbrokes Punter Lands Life-Changing Sum
The most spectacular result was recorded by a Ladbrokes online customer, who turned an A$100 stake (£51) into an eyewatering payout. While many would be content with simply selecting the winner of this hugely competitive handicap, our intrepid punter had loftier ambitions.
Melbourne Cup 2024 Result
| Pos. | Horse | Trainer | Jockey | Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Knight’s Choice | John Symons & Sheila Laxon | Robbie Dolan | 90/1 |
| 2nd | Warp Speed | Noboru Takagi | Akira Sugawara | 25/1 |
| 3rd | Okita Soushi | Ciaron Maher | Jamie Kah | 18/1 |
| 4th | Zardozi | James Cummings | Andrea Atzeni | 13/1 |
Why restrict yourself to picking the winner when you can correctly predict the first four finishers? Fortune favours the bold, and, having combined Knight’s Choice, Warp Speed, Okita Soushi, and Zardozi in his wager, the cash register in Ladbrokes account began to ring. Suspecting his bet had earned him A$780,000, the customer was in for a pleasant reprised as he logged in to find a huge A$3.2 million (£1,630,530) payout lying in wait!
The Luckiest of Lucky Dips
Rather than relying on their own instincts, some punters like to take the thought process out of placing a bet on the Melbourne Cup. For those happy to place their fate in the hands of the gods – or, more accurately, a random computer algorithm – the Mystery Bet is the go-to wager.
Available on betting terminals provided by Australian betting company TAB, this option requires you to enter your bet type and stake, and the machine does the rest. Quite how much hope a Victoria punter had when the machine handed him a slip containing the names of four runners priced at 13/1 or higher – including a 90/1 “rag” – is unknown. A few hours later, they had turned an A$24 outlay into a rather handsome A$728,0000 (£371,032) payout after getting the same top four as the punter above.
Riches for Ronan
Married to an Australian bombshell, worth an estimated £30m, and with a string of number 1 hits to his name, Ronan Keating isn’t short in the luck department. It, therefore, isn’t the biggest surprise to learn that the Irish crooner climbed aboard the Knight’s Choice-winning train.
Delighting the masses at the Flemington track by belting out a couple of tracks in the build-up to the big race, Ronan plunged an unspecified stake on the 90/1 chance ahead of the main event. When outlining his reasons, the 47-year-old noted that his best friend goes by the name of Charles Knight, and he knows jockey Robbie Nolan following his appearance on the Australian version of The Voice. Who needs a formbook?
