LONDON - A stable lad who works for a leading race horse trainer won $1.5 million on an accumulator bet of just $79 according to news reports on Friday.
Irishman Conor Murphy, 31, placed a bet on five winning horses - all trained by his employer, Nicky Henderson. The gamble was made at Britain's Cheltenham Festival of racing.
“I still cannot believe it, even this morning it is still sinking in," he told Newbury Today reporter Mark Taylor, who broke the story. "I haven’t even thought about the money yet. It was just pure luck."
“I put the bet on just before Christmas in December, I just picked the five best horses and hoped for a lot of luck, I didn’t think much about it."
He reported to work as normal on Friday morning despite his extraordinary win.
"Conor was in the yard this morning at 5:30 a.m. as usual, feeding, feeling legs and doing all the other important jobs as deputy head lad," Henderson told Eurosport.com.
"Everybody here is absolutely thrilled for him. It was just an amazing piece of foresight. Just the chances of all of five getting to Cheltenham and all of them running in the right races, that would be long odds."
Sports newspaper The Racing Post said Internet bookmaker Bet365 was unwilling to discuss the details of Thursday's win.
Spokesman Pat Cooney told the newspaper: "It was a horrible day for us as bookmakers, we lost on every single race, and while we are pleased for customers who had a good day, it is company policy not to discuss individual accounts."
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- From university campus to torture chamber: A Syrian's story
- Afghanistan's answer to 'Million Dollar Baby'?
- Ex-US officials probed over speeches to Iran terror group
- Afghan massacre: US soldier's lawyer eyes PTSD defense
- Poachers slaughter 200 elephants in Cameroon park
- PhotoBlog: From frontline to front page: Syria's image war
- Chinese political boss loses face, gets ousted
- Lawsuit: US evangelist inspired deadly hate against Uganda gays
- In 'KONY' town, video is hardly a sensation
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
