A LUCKY punter has pocketed £60 – but the horse he bet on got across the finishing line close to 6,000 DAYS AGO.
The gambler had forgotten to cash in until he was cleaning out clothes and came across the winning slip.
The bet was placed on Denman to win the Hennessy Gold Cup Chase at 5/1 eight days before the the race on November 28, 2009.
And the horse, ridden by jockey Ruby Walsh and trained by Paul Nicholls, was victorious by more than three lengths at Newbury.
But the punter did not head to Ladbrokes to collect his £60 winnings from a £10 stake until 16 YEARS LATER.
Staff were amazed when the customer strolled into his local betting shop to cash in last weekend.
Alex Apati, of Ladbrokes, said: “This winning slip was so old, it was just two years away from being able to walk into one of our shops and collect itself.
“Still, bettor late than never!”
The Hennessy Gold Cup Chase – now known as the Coral Gold Cup – had 19 runners in 2009.
And Denman, winning the contest for the second time, got across the finishing line after six minutes and 39.5 seconds.
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It was described as “one of the great performances in modern jumps racing”.
But it proved to be the Paul Nicholls-trained gelding’s 14th and final career triumph ahead of retiring in 2011 after coming fifth in the Aintree Bowl.
Denman was involved in 26 races, posting five second-place finishes and coming third on one occasion along the way.
And triumphing at Newbury in November 2009 resulted in one happy punter – even if it took more than a decade to collect his winnings.
Denman, known as The Tank, won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2008 and died aged 18 in June 2018.
