Willie Mullins had a four-timer on the opening day of the 2015 Cheltenham Festival.
But so far as most punters and layers were concerned it wasn't the four-timer – not the acca that would have struck a serious blow to bookmakers and left a reported £50 million industry-wide hole.
"It was pure excitement. We'd had winners, but it was the start of an era," recalled Patrick Mullins, leading amateur rider and assistant trainer to his father, on the remarkable team they had assembled for the opening day of the 2015 Festival.
Douvan in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, Un de Sceaux in the Arkle, Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle and Annie Power in the Mares' Hurdle. Four horses that in any normal yard would be once-in-a-lifetime talents, all to be ridden by the great Ruby Walsh.
"Douvan had presence," said Mullins. "He was like Usain Bolt. Just a different shape to everything else, so tall, so leggy and so powerful. He was just different."
He duly proved different class – even with a subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner in Sizing John in opposition – and set the accumulators rolling onto Un de Sceaux.
"It was Un de Sceaux's first time at the Festival," added Mullins. "He was so explosive. He was probably the one with the biggest question mark because it was a case of whether he would handle the occasion and would his jumping stand up. But he was pinpoint on the day."
Two from two and Faugheen, unbeaten after eight starts under Rules, was up next in the Champion Hurdle. He was backed up by Hurricane Fly, a dual winner of the race, causing split loyalties in the Mullins camp, though not among punters as Faugheen was sent off the 4/5 favourite.
"The Fly was just at the end of his prime whereas Faugheen was coming into his prime," explained Mullins. "Ruby [Walsh] had chosen Faugheen, which was the big thing. To be honest, I was probably cheering for Hurricane Fly, we'd been around the block together for a long time, but we thought with Faugheen that younger legs usually trump older legs in Cheltenham."
The acca backers – and team Mullins – were now expectant. All that was required was Annie Power, rated 11 lb clear of her closest rivals with Timeform, to win the Mares' Hurdle.
"You always go to Cheltenham and think 'which one is going to get beat', but Annie was the one who had the best chance of the four of them being in the mares-only race," said Mullins. "When the first three won it was Alice In Wonderland stuff and you were just expecting her to win.”
Mullins knew Annie Power well having ridden her on her first four starts, including two for Jim Bolger. It was the second of those outings, when she won at Wexford, that persuaded the rider of her quality.
He said: "There's a bend after the winning line and I was like 'I'm not going to get around this bend I'm going so fast'. I'd never been down that straight as fast. Walking out I asked Jim whether she would be for sale. He said she would and named me a price. I remember saying 'jeez, Jim, she's not Quevega'. He said, 'she'll be better than Quevega'.”
There may have been some salesmanship involved in Bolger's assertion but by the time Annie Power contested the Mares' Hurdle she was rated nearly as highly as Quevega, though obviously hadn't achieved as much as the six-time Cheltenham Festival winner.
It was looking ominous for the bookmakers whose window for action had long since closed.
Sebastian Butterworth, then head of racing at Sky Bet, said: "The trading director came up to me before racing and wanted to know the liabilities. It was loads for us at the time.
"He asked if I wanted to hedge anything and I said 'no, these are great bets to lay, we can't be getting rid of these. These are good customers who you don't mind losing to'.
"The theory is at Cheltenham that these are the most competitive races of the year, with the best horses, with the most accurate prices and you're not laying any coups or stuff that's hidden from you. The form's out there, it's transparent and you're laying good customers at the right price.
"Should I have taken a million off the liability [by hedging before the first race]? In hindsight I probably should have. I wouldn't have done anything wrong had I done that. If it cops after I said no, I've cost us a load of money; equally, if it doesn't cop after I said no, nobody is going to remember I've saved 40 grand or so by not hedging. It was too bold a decision not to."
Cashout – which may have helped reduce the scale of the payout if promoted to punters – wasn’t available on horseracing at Sky Bet in 2015, so by the time Annie Power was set to race the pressure was really on.
"You've got your directors stood by you asking how much this is going to cost,” recalled Butterworth.
"When Annie was travelling over everything you're thinking 'oh god, this is looking bad' and then the murmurs around the desk start. She then streaks clear and you get that hot feeling and start thinking 'oh sh*t, oh sh*t, don't look around'.
"And then she falls."
At Cheltenham, Patrick Mullins, who was riding in the next race on the card, the National Hunt Chase, was stood by the final hurdle.
He said: “I was down at the last hurdle and coming up to it you're thinking 'you good thing, four winners on the day – incredible!' But then the fall she got...sometimes you get a fall and it's just a fall, but hers was a particularly dangerous one. I remember the two heartbeats of waiting for her to get up, and once she got up it was fine.
“Once she was okay, we were looking back up the hill and just about seeing Glens Melody in front. We were delighted Paul Townend got a winner as he was quite young and was one of us. We still had our fourth winner, Annie Power was okay and from our point of view it was a great day.”
Kyle Brady, a former Sky Bet trader, remembers shock and relief being the overwhelming feeling on the trading floor.
He said: “Once everyone had just calmed down I think it was relief. I'd imagine it's like when a plane crash-lands, and you all get out on the tarmac smiling at each other thinking 'what on earth has just happened?’ I'm pretty sure we all went for a few pints.
“I feel like 2015 is around the time the business started picking up, and it was in the middle of a growth spurt. At that point the Tuesday of Cheltenham was probably the biggest horseracing trading day in the company's history.”
Butterworth has since taken a more phlegmatic approach and said: “At the time it would have been our biggest ever loss and really seismic, and it was more pressing for me because I said don't hedge, but in hindsight those were the years when Sky Bet was growing significantly and the biggest periods of growth came following the biggest losses.
“You'd have had a lot of people winning quite a bit and stakes for the rest of Cheltenham would have been amazing and general engagement in racing would have been really good – you'd have eventually got it back. The worst is when there's a massive coup and three or four people have won loads. You're never going to get that back.
“Annie Power winning would have been a bad day but wouldn't have been apocalyptic. It was seismic but wasn't existential to us. It was a massive sigh of relief.”
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