Punters Dine Out Free On Sandown Sixes
Omen backers should have seen it coming! In the sixth race of the sixth week of the promotion, the ‘Sandown Sixes' came home courtesy of a narrow victory to the Graeme Bate trained sprinter Dante Bale…appropriately enough at odds of 6/1.
The promotion, which offers dining patrons a full refund whenever three ‘sixes' win on the night that they attend, is designed to serve as a drawcard to promote on-course attendance and the experience of live racing.
Thursday night got off to a perfect start for the green vest with wins in the first two races of the program, but consecutive second placings in the third and fourth races suggested that the tide may have been turning against a third victory for the ‘six'.
However, patrons only had to wait two more races to complete the set when Dante Bale held off a desperate challenge from Day Out, to win by the barest of margins, a nose.
The result was poetic justice for patrons who, only a week earlier, had been denied a third victory for the sixes by the same margin, a nose, in the final race of the night.
And as for the statistical probability of three ‘sixes' getting up at Sandown…well history demonstrates that it is a genuine 9-1 shot.
The ‘green' is also not statistically the least successful box at Sandown Park…that honour goes to the yellow box with a long-term strike rate of 9.84% compared with 17.73% for the most successful box (not surprisingly) the ‘red'.