Betting operators in Australia have been hit hard by Shelby Sixtysix’s win in The Galaxy. The five-year-old’s triumph on Golden Slipper day in the Group 1 sprint was heavily backed by punters and bookmakers admitted that it was one of their heaviest hits recently.
According to industry sources, Australian betting providers have had to pay bettors who backed Shelby Sixtysix a multi-million dollar figure.
Punters Found Value in Shelby Sixtysix
Andrew Georgiou from Tabcorp said that it was one of the worst hits they had copped for a long time. Georgiou said that the five-year-old trained by Danny Williams was $11 when markets went up and he could see that the horse became the people’s favourite.
However, even though he knew that there would be lots of bets placed on the horse Robbie Dolan rode to victory, he was still surprised by the sheer volume of wagers and the multis going through him.
He compared Shelby Sixtysix to Winx and Black Caviar. Unlike the two bettor-favourites whose prices were always short, though, Shelby Sixtysix was actually very good value for bettors, saying that he was the carnival’s “pin-up horse.”
Dean Shannon from Ladbrokes was also surprised by the number of people that backed Shelby Sixtysix. He said that he was the new people’s horse and that it wasn’t the size of the wagers that was surprising, but the number of bettors that were cashing in on his win.
Shelby Sixtysix is an Outsider for the TJ Smith Stakes with Sportsbet
As for Danny Williams and Shelby Sixtysix’s owners, they will now have to decide whether they will pay the $55,000 entry fee to run the TJ Smith Stakes at Royal Randwick, as Shelby Sixtysix wasn’t nominated for any of The Championships’ feature races.
Williams said that they were currently discussing what they would do next and if they would be able to come up with $55,000. However, he was confident that both his partner and him would find the money and take part on Doncaster-Derby day.
He also said that the number of runners would also affect their decision and that if there were 10 or fewer of them, that would “help things a fair bit.”
Sportsbet has Nature Strip and Eduardo as the two front runners for the TJ Smith Stakes priced at $3.50 and $4.40 respectively. Home Affairs ($8.50) is right behind them. At $26, Shelby Sixtysix is something of an outsider.
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