Bear Behind and a cheeky £11m

QUESTION

What is the largest payout ever awarded by a UK bookmaker? This was the £10,740,797 paid out by the Tote (now run by Betfred) on May 10 this year.

The scoop 6 is a once-a-week saturday bet which involves picking a horse in each of six specific UK horse races, in this case the first six races at haydock Park. Picking the winner in each wins you the pool.

The money was split between eight winners; three betting-shop punters who put in small stakes, and five betting syndicates that probably invested five-figure sums in multiple permutations. Each won £1,342,599.63 and a chance to pick up a £5.5 million bonus.

The figure was so high because there were 12 weeks of rollovers, pulling in lots more punters.

The first of the six races at haydock was won by a 16- 1 outsider, Bear Behind, which succeeded in whittling the original 5,523,501 tickets down to 238,627.

By the last race, the Betfred Mobile Casino silver Bowl, 122 punters were still in the game. The Alan King-trained Chatez, a 7-1 shot, relished the soft conditions that day and powered to victory under jockey Fergus sweeney, to beat 8-1 Zarwan by half a length.

A 39- year- old binman called Craig Brazier became the public face of the bet.

The following week, the punters were invited to pick a horse at the 14.50 York meeting for the bonus pot. Channel 4 cameras followed Mr Brazier as his horse, Tumbleweed, led at the final furlong before losing to 12-1 Top Boy.

Colossus Bets chief executive Bernard Marantelli chose the winning horse, but he split the £5,481,763 fund with two other ticket-holders who’d teamed up to improve their chances. Martin King, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffs.

QUESTION

In 1935 Benito Mussolini appealed to the patriotism of Italy’s wives, urging them to swap their gold wedding bands for steel rings. Was this drive successful? FUrThEr to the earlier answer, my grandmother had one of these steel bands, stamped ‘ Oro alla patria’ (‘Gold for the fatherland’). she lived in Australia but such was the draw of il Duce that she sent her ring back via the italian consul-general in Melbourne.

The idea of women sacrificing their most personal possession in such a barbarous cause (the invasion of Abyssinia) always made me sad. Today the steel rings are worth about £50 at auction.

The previous answer stated that 33,622 tons of gold were obtained: this should have read 33.622 tons.

Elia Shearing, Liverpool.