Punters ended the 2006 Cheltenham Festival on a high note thanks to several well-backed winners on the final day, including an Irish horse, War of Attrition, winning the Gold Cup on St Patrick\’s Day.
“A well-backed Irish winner on St Patrick\’s Day was always going to be costly for the bookies,” said David Stevens of Coral.
“But for them to have a clean sweep in the biggest race of the week simply added insult to injury and ensured that the punters had a winning day.”
“However, thanks to the dream day that the bookies had on Wednesday, we have still had a winning week.”
“You could almost predict that St Patrick would come to the aid of the punter but bookmakers are still celebrating the gains made on Wednesday and Thursday which amounted to almost £70million across the industry,” said David Hood of William Hill.