Mystery horse race winner finally claims £394,487 winings

You may remember a story we ran last week regarding a woman who had placed a bet at a bookies in Newcastle upon Tyne on six horses and had failed to claim her near £400,000 winnings? Well, the good news is, she has been discovered. 

Amber Galligan, 22, had placed the £2 Scoop6 bet on behalf of her disabled father Thomas, 53, who couldn't make it to the bookies. However, by complete accident, Amber mistakenly selected a different horse than the one her father had selected in the final race and she also chose a non-runner in another. 

And, in some truly sensational twist of fate, the “wrong” pick won at odds of 33-1 and the money on the non-runner automatically switched to the winning favourite in that leg of the bet. 

As well as the mistakes made by Amber, Thomas had also selected a non-runner in the opening race and the favourite again won him the money. 

All of their wonderful good luck and Thomas’ other winning selections meant that they won the whopping £394,487 Scoop6 pot.

But due to the mistakes and the non-runners, father-of-four Thomas, originally from Leith, and Amber had no idea they had won.

In fact there was a national appeal from a number of publications including the Betfred boss Fred Done, to find the mystery winner, as they had the opportunity to add a further £251,966 to their winnings with a bonus race on Saturday. 

And then, Amber entered the shop in Benwell a few days later to put on another bet for her father and it was then that she discovered they had won.

Amber told DailyRecord.co.uk that she was stood at the counter when the assistant told her that they had been looking for her. 

She said: “When he first told me that the bet had won, I thought it might have been a few hundred pounds, not hundreds of thousands. I was shocked and couldn’t believe what he was telling me.

“But my dad’s been a fantastic father and deserves a change of luck. It was weird when I heard how much it was. It hasn’t sunk in really.”

Amber said that she initially wrote the bet on the wrong slip and went on to get help from the assistant behind the counter who transferred her numbers over to the Scoop6 slip. 

She continued: “I picked Dandy Boy at 33-1 in the last leg at Ascot but it must have been a slip of the pen and I also put the number 18 in the second leg and there were only 16 in the race, so that went on the winning favourite.”

Amber and her father Thomas currently live in a small two-bedroomed council flat and Thomas, who has terrible arthritis, has to sleep on the sofa. 

Amber said that Thomas was going to buy them a larger house and take the family on holiday. 

Thomas also spoke to DailyRecord.co.uk saying that his first priority will be to buy a new house and then he will take his whole family on holiday. 

Betfred chief Done said: “We’re all delighted that we’ve finally found Thomas as the amount he’s landed really will change his life for the better.

“I’d like to thank my shop staff and area managers for being so alert  otherwise Thomas may still not know that he was sitting on a fortune.”

Source: DailyRecord.co.uk

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Picture: Dave Ellis