Huge Gold Cup bets come off for Scandinavia backers

Scandinavia’s Gold Cup success proved an expensive one for bookmakers, with Star Sports reporting a £120,000 bet on Aidan O’Brien’s charge in Royal Ascot’s day three feature.

The four-year-old was sent off a heavily-backed 11-8 favourite for the two-and-a-half-mile showpiece and eventually wore down the defending champion Trawlerman to win a thrilling tussle by a head.

Prior to the race Flynn Goward, managing director at Star Sports, said: “We’ve taken a sizeable bet on today’s Royal Ascot feature, with a wager of £120,000 on Scandinavia at 5-2 to win the Gold Cup.

“Earlier on we took £100,000 on Cannes at 4-1 to win the King George V Stakes, and managed to get that one beaten, so we’re hoping for a repeat in the Gold Cup.”

On-course bookmaker Geoff Banks also explained how the result was costly for the layers.

He told ITV Racing: “When it was 5-2 each of two (Scandinavia and Trawlerman) you’re thinking it was going to be an open race between the pair of them and we were almost looking for a result, but the punters got it right and the bookies got slaughtered!

“Scandinavia was 5-2 into 11-8, it was a ding-dong battle up the straight and a fantastic race, but the bookies have done their money.”

For Ladbrokes, spokesperson Alex Apati aid: “Thursday was another day for short-priced winners at Royal Ascot, and even though the favourites didn’t clean up, we saw plenty of support for the likes of Scandinavia, Enceladus and Earth Shot. It leaves us with some serious work to do over the next two days.”