An old fashioned betting plunge was successfully pulled off with Kempsey five-year-old mare Edea winning at Kempsey Race Club's TAB meeting at Warwick Park Racecourse last Saturday.
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As much as 90-1 odds was secured with bookmakers by followers of Barry Ratcliff's stable with the official starting price reducing to $41 and paying $54.90 on the TAB.
"All my friends, owner Kevin Gibson, are happy-even my local butcher backed it. He said come around Monday and I will have a parcel of meat for you...so long as its not sausages," Ratcliff said.
So how did Edea get out to such long odds?
"It had only won one race at a bush meeting at Gundagai and it was up against horses which had won five or six races," the elated trainer said.
He didn't have much on Edea but the owner, who only recently moved to Euroka and gave Ratcliff two of his many gallopers to train, had a good win and happily thanked those involved with the mare by way of cash handouts.
Ratcliff said that when apprentice jockey Olivia Pickering guided Edea to a length win at the finishing post "the crowd went beserk".
"Friends of friends must have backed her."
Maybe the win was prophetic regarding the mare's breeding and seeing that the meeting was always on Anzac Day but was switched for the first time to Saturday by Racing NSW, thus avoiding any chance of the Auuse game "two-up".
Edea is by Wanted out of Spinner's Magic.
Better to get the spoils later than never and give Ratcliff his fifth winner for the season.
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