Far from a dog’s life for local punter

A COUPLE of truly amazing bets for readers this week and we start with the greyhound bet that made a local punter a very happy  man indeed.

Our punter placed a £4 Lucky 15  (£60 outlay) on the greyhounds  at Newcastle last Wednesday afternoon with Sean Grahams.

His first dog TRAP 6 (LUD HESSLE) won the 4.14 race at 5/2 to get the bet off to  a flyer and TRAP 5 (BLACK ELEGANCE)  in the 4.28 made it two out of two when winning at 9/4. Our punter had already banked a few quid.

It got better for our punter twenty minutes later when TRAP 5 (FODHLA) won at 3/1.

Now he was really in the money with a lovely winning treble on the board and one dog to go. And when he saw his final selection in the 5.44 was a non-runner he thought, happy days, three  winners and a non-runner – still around £780 banked.

Our punter was oblivious to the Sean Graham rule that if you  write a trap number down then your money goes on the reserve dog. Sometimes there is no reserve  so the trap is vacant and then you get the non-runner.

The TRAP 3 reserve in the race was  the complete outsider WHAT’S OCCURRING which went off a no-hoper at 25/1. But, as the man says, a dog doesn’t know what price it is and the big fat reserve skated home. Unknown to our man, he was on it.

In called our blissfully unaware punter to collect his £780 windfall. He had to be given a chair and a glass of water when the girl told him there was... wait for it... £12,388.20 off the docket. It’s not often you get more than you bargained for from the settler. But if it’s for you, it’s for you...

It wasn’t all good luck for punters at the weekend, with two Short Strand soccer punters being left devastated by a single team. They had a score on a 22-TIMER at the football on Saturday, marking down a long succession of odds-on chances.

They had an amazing 21 winners on their docket only to be let down by Shrewsbury (2/5)  who lost 2-0 at home to doomed Darlington. Hard to reckon up a tricky bet like that, but we reckon it would have paid around the £8,000 mark. We’ll give the duo a free £20 Grahams bet to cheer them up – but only on condition that they don’t do a 22-timer.

A PUNTER from Athenry in Co  Galway has won more than £100,000 on a Tote Super 7 bet.

 He laid the £2 bet in a Ladbrokes  betting office in his home town. The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, was in the shop to see his final selection Paquerettza win the last leg by a head to secure the six-figure pay-out.

The Tote Super 7 bet has only been won five times since its launch in September 2008 and this is the first win on Irish soil. 

The Tote select seven races daily which will be televised and the aim is to pick the winners of all seven.

UK Tote bets can be placed either with Ladbrokes or with Tote Ireland and go directly into the UK pools.

We had a punter on a few weeks back complaining about Paddy Power over Cheltenham.

The Andytown punter placed six different 50p placepots on the Wednesday of the festival. 

He had Quantitativeeasing as his fifth selection and he finished fifth in the race. Our punter thought he was still going as written on the bottom of his docket was ‘Cheltenham Wednesday Extra Value Coral Cup – We’re Paying 5 Places’.

His last selection won Leg 6 of his placepot and our punter thought he had £1,200 in the bank.

He was brought down to earth with a rather unpleasant bang when he went in the next day to collect his ‘winnings’. It seems the ‘terms and conditions’ referred to meant the ‘Extra Value’  didn’t apply on placepots. Our punter feels that he was hard done-by, but so far he’s had no satisfaction.

The disgruntled punter has taken his case to both head-office and IBAS. The PG emailed Paddy  a few weeks back, but we are still waiting on a response. Watch this space.

Grand National fever starts at Fairyhouse

IT’S GOING to be a helter-skelter week for punters as we have two Nationals in the space of six days.

 It all gets under way this Easter Monday with the Irish National at Fairyhouse and then six days later we have the English National at Aintree.

We concentrate this week on the Powers Whiskey Irish Grand National which is run over three miles and five furlongs on Monday and what a puzzle this is for punters to work out .

POKER DE SIVOLA, ridden by Katie Walsh, won the National Hunt Steeplechase Challenge Cup at the Cheltenham festival. Trainer Ferdy Murphy has targeted this race after that win and if Cheltenham hasn’t taken it out of him then we expect him to be thereabouts on Monday. He gets an 11/1 midweek Grahams quote.

Arbor Supreme went into the PG notebook for this race after his very creditable second behind Stewarts House at Leopardstown over the shorter trip of two  mile five furlongs. The extra mile could suit him, with Paul Townend booked he looks a great each-way bet at 14/1.

Before all that we have the Grade One Powers Gold Cup on Easter Sunday and if the Colm Murphy-trained Zaarito can stay on his feet then it’s simple – he’s the one they all have to beat.

But he has fallen twice this season when holding every chance, but then skated up at Naas.

Of the dangers, SEE U BOB could give him a scare after a fine second to the ill-fated Citizen Vic.

Weekend Soccer

Out of 12 soccer selections last weekend the pG gave out an amazing NINE winners with one selection beating us out in every bet. But anyone who did the perm double on the XXX was rewarded with an 11/1 double.

On to the weekend action and the big match is the Man Utd v Chelsea game at Old Trafford.

The ankle injury suffered by Wayne Rooney on Tuesday night sent the football betting markets crazy. Premier League title prices and England's World Cup odds were among those to move after Rooney limped out of the Allianz Arena on crutches following lacklustre Utd's last-minute 2-1 defeat to Bayern Munich.

But more immediately, the crunch top-of-the-table clash has been affected. Chelsea have been cut to 15/8 from 5/2 to win Saturday’s game, with the champions out to around the 5/4  mark from evens, and it’s 11/5 the draw. 

The PG is staying away from this one but will be praying for the draw for very obvious reasons.

QUAD

We start our weekend selections with the quad and our banker bet of the weekend. We think QPR (1/1) can make home advantage count and take all points at home to Sheffield Wednesday. CARDIFF (11/10) have hit form at the right time and can gain revenge over arch-rivals Swansea in the big Championship match. LIVERPOOL (1/1) have a mountain to climb to grab that fourth place but can do better than Arsenal and take all points away at Birmingham.

BRISTOL ROVERS (9/5) need a win to keep their slim chances of a play-off place going and can win at Carlisle, who took a hammering at Wembley last weekend.

Fivehit

Quickly on to the Fivehit and we start with MAN CITY (4/6) who can grab all points at Turf Moor against a surely doomed Burnley.

MILLWALL (1/2) are flying at the minute and can grab another three points at home to Brentford.

WEST BROM (8/13) know a win on Saturday will all but guarantee them a trip back to the Premiership and we think they can take all points against Leicester.

MIDDLESBORO (8/13) can add another nail to the Championship coffin of Crystal Palace 

BRECHIN (4/5) always seem to beat Peterhead and can do so again on Saturday.

XXX

Spurs are in pole position for that fourth place and can take a valuable point at SUNDERLAND.

COVENTRY and DERBY need points on the board and we think they can grab a point each in this one.

We end the draw treble in League Two where MK DONS take on Charlton. This looks another tough call and the draw looks the easy way out.

Remember the perm of doubles and a treble, folks.