As punters we’ve all got a thousand stories of “Bad Beats” on the race track.
But as far as “Bad Beats” go, the sheer agony felt by punter Paul Challita (@paul_challita) on Tuesday afternoon is almost second to none.
In the office on a casual Tuesday afternoon where he works as an Equity Trader on the Stock Market, Paul checked out the daily tips offered on Twitter by Weekend King Racing (@weekendkingrace) & it just so happened Paul himself also liked 3 of the selections that Weekend King had pin-pointed at Wagga & Lismore.
Paul said “sometimes he bets straight out depending on how busy he is at work” but most of the time “he loves putting on 3 or 4 leg horse racing multi’s in the hope on scoring a big win, when time permits.”
This particular Tuesday arvo, things in the office were a bit quiet so he thought he’d chuck on a multi and see how his afternoon went. Little did he know of the “tragic” events that were to follow.
Here is the bet he placed just after 2PM. A $100, 3 legged multi to win $33,000!
1ST LEG:
LISMORE RACE 5 (3:35PM): LATINO LOVER ($10)
The “roughie” of his 3 legs, LATINO LOVER, was the first to run but it went straight to the front over the 2100M & relished the wet conditions to lead all the way & score a comprehensive victory. A great start to the multi!
2ND LEG :
WAGGA RACE 6 (3:50PM): ADDCHAN ($5.50)
The shortest priced runner of the 3 legs was ADDCHAN. He settled well back in the field but around the corner you could see it was travelling “like a bomb” and he sailed down the outside to clearly hit the lead. He looked like he’d win by 2 or 3 lengths, but a despised 100-1 pop caused a few anxious moments when it flew home to get within a short half head of ADDCHAN.
In any case he got the victory & Paul had 2 legs down out of 2 with one to come & an extremely nervous 35 minute wait until the final leg.
In many instances with most bookies, Paul could have cashed out for what we approximate to be around $5,000, which he was “unsure whether he would have taken or not” anyway.
But because the bet was with the TAB, they don’t offer the “Cash Out” feature on horse racing multi’s outside metropolitan racing. So Paul had no choice.
It was to be “Vegas or Bust” on Tycoon Tony, the 3rd leg of his multi.
3RD LEG:
WAGGA RACE 7 (4:25PM): TYCOON TONY ($6.00)
NOW WE GET TO THE HORROR SHOW!
Watch the replay below and you’ll see just how unlucky Tony was!
Tycoon Tony, jumps from Barrier 1 – RED / WHITE SLEEVES & RED / WHITE CAP.
From barrier 1 he parked in what seemed in what seemed a perfect spot on the fence 3 or 4 pairs back.
But in the straight Tycoon Tony had nothing but rump steak in front of him. When he FINALLY got clear at about the 75m/100m mark, he absolutely rocketed to the line to finish a tragedy beaten into second beaten by just 0.23L. As if to rub salt into the wound the winner of the race was the aptly named HEZA THIEF. Caller Alan Hull said as the crossed the line- “Heza Thief, has stolen it”. That’s exactly how Paul felt, Heza Thief had cost him a $33,000 payday for just a $100 outlay.
Paul said post race, “I’m absolutely spewing aye……As you can imagine I’m gutted watching Tycoon Tony lose like that”.
We’re all with you Paul, it’s sickening to watch the replays!!!
There is however a silver lining to the story however sick Paul’s loss on Tuesday was….
On December 29, 2017, Paul claimed a massive 4 leg multi winning $27,750 that was by far “the biggest win of his long punting career”. However great that win was it doesn’t take away the pain of this “Bad Beat”
