Disaster for bookies as Sir Gerhard completes memorable six-timer for favourites

Sunday: Leopardstown

Few things excite bookmakers quite like a bumper festival crowd but the smiles were wiped clean off those operating pitches at Leopardstown on Sunday after Sir Gerhard completed a huge six-timer for favourite backers by making all in the Grade 1 Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle.

Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of decent folk operating in the jungle of the betting ring and two of the most popular faces, Ray Mulvany and Darragh Fitzpatrick, took a losing day on the chin.

Sir Gerhard represented win number seven for Willie Mullins at the Dublin Racing Festival, while Paul Townend was landing his fourth, all of which came at Grade 1 level, and Mulvany took his hat off to the pair despite laying a number of multiples for eyewatering sums.

3.35 Leopardstown: full result and replay

He said: “It's great to be back, doing what we love doing, but it has been a terrible day for the bookmakers. Willie Mullins has had things sewn up here at Leopardstown and the punters were alive to that, but he and Paul Townend can only be applauded for what they’re doing.”

Mulvany added: “We came out on top yesterday but today has been a very bad day. There are two races to go. Hopefully, we can get a result in the handicap and then maybe get Pink In The Park beaten, but we've done plenty of damage already. We laid plenty of doubles and trebles. They've all gone in. That's life.”

Fitzpatrick was similarly magnanimous in having to hand over shed loads of cash but, in predictably plucky fashion, was holding out hope for a decent result in the bumper.

He said: “It is what it is. Punters have just been wading in – one short-priced favourite after the other – and we've lost a few quid. We need a big result in the handicap hurdle and Pink In The Park to get beaten. I'm an eternal optimist, so I'll stay going, but it's been a good day for punters.”

Paul Townend celebrates after he completes a Grade 1 treble with Sir GerhardCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

As for Sir Gerhard, it was more a case of job done than anything else with last season’s Champion Bumper winner making a series of mistakes but still having enough left to burn his rivals off from the front.

Mullins said: “He was very green whereas at Christmas he was like a handicapper. He was all over the place heading out passing the stands on the final circuit, then Paul hit him a slap to try and get him to concentrate and he just took off. The second half of the race was good. The first half of the race was bad."

Like Sir Gerhard, the bookmakers finished much stronger than they started. A 20-1 winner of the Liffey Handicap Hurdle followed by Pink In The Park getting turned over by a 40-1 chance in the finale proved the bookmakers' unbreakable optimism to be correct.

Read more Sunday reports:

Bookies spared 'significant' seven-figure payout as 40-1 shot wins bumper

'I've never experienced that before' - Blackmore and Honeysuckle send crowd wild

'Up there with the best novices I've ridden' – Galopin Des Champs wows Townend

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