What are some of the biggest bets placed on horse racing?

The history of horse racing is awash with tales of lucky punters who have won hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of pounds for relatively modest stakes. However, at the other end of the scale, there have been a few high rollers, or whales, as they are also known in casino parlance, for whom staking (and sometimes losing) six or seven figure sums was nothing unusual.

The late Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon famous for founding World Series Cricket in the late seventies, was an inveterate gambler, who had his fair share of ups and downs. In 1987, Packer co-owned Major Drive, the winner of the Sydney Cup at Randwick Racecourse, but nonetheless conspired to lose a reported A$7 million on the hot favourite for that race, Myocard, who eventually finished second.

A decade later, though, the boot was on the other foot. In 1997, Packer reportedly staked nearly A$1.5 million on the Melbourne Cup winner, Might And Power, thereby sharing in excess of A$6 million with his friend, property developer Lloyd Williams. Lo and behold, the pair were back again in 1998, winning an estimated A$10 million on Jezabeel.

More recently and closer to home, ‘Fearless’ Freddie Williams laid his nemesis, Irish billionaire John Patrick ‘J.P.’ McManus, a bet of £600,000/£100,000 about Reveillez, the winner of the Jewson Novices’ Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2006. As recently as 2023, as reported in ‘The Sun’, Star Sports laid an unnamed punter bet of £83,636/£230,000 about Constitution Hill in the Champion Hurdle, also at the Cheltenham Festival.