A band of pub punters from Stockport landed £3million in just three weeks - with the help of a winning streak on the horses.
A new book lays bare some of the secrets of the system the pals used and the untold stories behind their betting coups.
Their success left them celebrating with the finest champagne, along with congratulations from fellow racing fans.
£3 million in 3 Weeks - The Squirrel Syndicate - A Gambler's Tale, tells how the Squirrel Syndicate employed a mix of mathematics and form study to claim their bumper winnings on the Tote’s flagship Scoop6 pool bet.
Similar to the Tote Jackpot, but with place and bonus pools in addition to the main win pool, the Scoop6 is a bet that sees players eliminated as each race is run. Those on the winner get through to the next race, with less and less surviving as the six featured events are run and you can win either the entire pool or a share of it, if there are multiple winners.
The remarkable run which included jaunts to racecourses, with several pubs being drunk dry, but also some generous donations to a children’s cancer charity, began when their Irish-trained pick Leg Spinner at 14-1 won the famous Cesarewitch race at Newmarket. They had a single ticket on it to land £1.5 million having already secured the first five winners on that day's Scoop6 card.
And only 21 days later the syndicate hit the jackpot again. Precisely, 15 years ago this month when Malt Or Mash came from last in the field to win the November Handicap in the closing stages at Doncaster, after a horse called Philanthropy took the early lead.
The Sunderland-based children’s charity which the syndicate backed, The Thomas Russell Cancer Trust Fund, got a mention on terrestrial TV from anchorman Derek ‘Tommo’ Thompson and a donation from signed copies of the new book go to the fund.
Syndicate member Richard Brocklebank, aka The Squirrel, tells of how the group from the Three Tunnes pub in Hazel Grove pulled off the feat against astronomical odds - estimated at 993 billion-to-one.
Richard said: "The first £1.5 million in that remarkable run came on a Saturday at Newmarket when an Irish-trained horse called Leg Spinner won the Cesarewitch.
"At the start of the bet we calculated our chance of success at six per cent, but one member of the syndicate was keen on some French raiders at Newmarket. We decided to place a perm taking those into account.
"From more than 800,000 tickets in at the start of the bet, just 21,340 were still standing when Miss Lucifer at 20-1 won the first leg, but that also saw our chance of the win dipping to around two per cent.
"By the final leg we had still had eight tickets alive in the win pool and most of the 16 of us in the syndicate that week had met in the Three Tunnes pub to watch the final leg. When Leg Spinner won the race carrying our single ticket, the beers went flying. We drank the bar dry that evening celebrating."
Of the October 2007 win, Richard added: "With £1,519,301 due in my bank account, we missed the bonus the following Saturday. Undaunted, we went on the attack the next weekend with a new £424,674 win fund, and that bonus had now grown to £1,137,972.
"Once again, we met in the Three Tunnes to watch the final leg. This time the winner was greeted with stunned silence in the pub as we couldn’t believe we had done it again, but we duly drank them out of beer once more. We now had a free selection for a £1,137,972 bonus fund the following weekend and won that."
Squirrel Syndicate’s legendary wins:
2003 - £156,238 Jackpot at Lingfield
July 2004 - £125,000 – Scoop6 win fund
July 2004 - £375,000 Scoop6 Bonus fund at Goodwood
November 2004 – Scoop6 win and bonus fund £919,678
October 2007 – Scoop6 win fund £1,519,304
October 2007 – Scoop6 win fund £424,675
November 2007 – Scoop6 Bonus £1,137,972
March 2009 - £1 Million Scoop6 win fund followed by Scoop6 Bonus Fund £3,184,369 (British record-breaking pool bet dividend at that time)
January 2010 - £326, 042 - record-breaking share of the now defunct Super Seven.
January 2016 - £226,387 - Scoop6 win fund
June 2016 - share of £4 million Royal Ascot Scoop6 – won a share of £2 million opening Tuesday of the meeting and a share of a £2 Million bonus on the Wednesday
November/December 2017 – Scoop6 win and bonus fund £576,776
December 2017 – Super Pick6 Punchestown 961,349 Euros to 50 cents for 112,157 Euros win
£3million in 3 Weeks - The Squirrel Syndicate - A Gambler's Tale – by Richard Brocklebank and Charles Yates, available via www.squirrelbook.shop at £19.99.
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