DUBLIN — A horse running at odds of 300-1 became the longest-priced winner in the history of racing in Britain and Ireland on Thursday.
He Knows No Fear won the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Leopardstown, prompting bookmakers to express their astonishment that many people tipped the 3-year-old horse for victory.
The longest-priced winner in Britain had previously been Equinoctial, a 250-1 shot, at Kelso in November 1990. In Ireland, the biggest outsider to win a race was Killahara Castle at 200-1 in December 2017.
Trained by Luke Comer, He Knows No Fear was 12th of 14 on his debut at Limerick last month -- at odds of 250-1.
Despite his huge odds at Leopardstown, British bookmaker William Hill took 86 bets on He Knows No Fear while another bookmaker, Paddy Power, said “almost 100 plucky punters lived up to their horse’s name and somehow managed to pinpoint the winner,” said.
“These punting heroes,” Paddy Power spokesman Paul Binfield said, “have either been struck by divine inspiration or are extremely shrewd form judges who managed to see the positives from the winner’s debut at Limerick — where he was slowly away and made no impression from two furlongs out before trailing home a distant 18 lengths behind Comfort Line.”
