The £50m fall: Annie Power and the incredible day that took bookmakers to the brink and left punters on the floor

With just over two weeks until day one of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival we’re all hoping for a suitably exciting start to the meeting to match the fevered build-up. But it would be a miracle if it produces the same level of sheer drama it did ten years ago.

Day one in 2015 had promised much, with four hot favourites, all trained by the increasingly powerful force of Willie Mullins and ridden by the Cheltenham king Ruby Walsh, carrying the hopes of punters. Yet the way it ended ensured that the name ‘Annie Power’ can still bring thousands out in a cold sweat a decade on . . .

The build-up

Weeks before the 2015 Cheltenham Festival it is already clear Mullins and Walsh could have a spectacular opening day, with Douvan in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, Un De Sceaux in the Arkle, Faugheen in the Champion Hurdle and Annie Power in the Mares' Hurdle all strongly fancied. With a huge number of punters determined to back those in question in singles, doubles, trebles and accumulators, the Mullins and Walsh quartet are dubbed 'The Four Horses Of The Apocalypse' by bookmakers.