RACING:BETFAIR HAVE confirmed a technical fault with a "bot" was to blame for the remarkable betting patterns that took place during Wednesday's woodiesdiy.com Christmas Hurdle at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival meeting.
The betting exchange eventually voided all in-running bets on the race after one customer, whoBetfair have also confirmed was UK-based, laid easy winner Voler La Vedette for £21,474,836 at 29 (28 to 1).
This would have left the customer with a maximum liability of close to £600 million.
A statement from interim Betfair CEO Stephen Morana read: “This bet was placed by one of our UK customers trading the race via our API or Application Programming Interface (http://bdp.betfair.com/) using an automated program (a ”bot“).
“Their bot had developed a fault causing it to try and place a very large number of bets on the Exchange.
“These bets were large in size and mispriced. As you know, the Betfair system is designed to prevent customers betting unless they have the funds to cover their maximum liability.
“In this case, the customer had less than £1,000 in their account so none of these bets should have been accepted.
“However, due to a technical glitch within the core exchange database, one of the bets evaded the prevention system and was shown on the site.
“This was an issue that was triggered because of a unique sequence of events that had never happened before.
“The race continued and Voler La Vedette won. £822,614 of backers’ stakes were matched of the customer’s bet, resulting in a potential liability to the customer of £23 million.”
Meanwhile, Barry Geraghty has reiterated his belief Kempton winner Sprinter Sacre is one of the best two-mile chasers he has ever ridden.
Nicky Henderson’s five-year-old achieved a high level of form over hurdles last season, but looks set to scale even greater heights over larger obstacles judged on his two starts this season.
Following a flawless introduction at Doncaster, Sprinter Sacre put last season’s Champion Hurdle runner-up Peddlers Cross in his place with a brilliant display in Tuesday’s Wayward Lad Novices’ Chase.
Geraghty has been associated with plenty of high-class chasers down the years, including dual Champion Chase winner Moscow Flyer and most recently Big Zeb.
“He is without doubt up there with the best two-mile chasers that I’ve ever ridden – and I’ve been very fortunate to have ridden at least one of the true greats in Moscow Flyer,” the jockey said in his At The Races blog.
“To put him in context, he’s the best two-mile novice that I’ve been on since Moscow Flyer. He won even better than I thought he would although I always thought that he would beat Peddlers Cross but it’s quite likely that horse didn’t run to his best after the early mistake and the track probably didn’t play to his strengths.
“It certainly suited my lad who has lots of class and stays the trip well but Cheltenham definitely wouldn’t be a bother to him – he’s not a horse that needs a flat track. Quite simply, he’s got a tick in every box.
“Although he was in front most of the way it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d sat on Peddlers Cross’s tail.
“For me, Sprinter Sacre is one of the most important horses around for the future.”
