BACKING Knight's Choice could've been considered an omen for Hunter punters in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday, November 5.
Backing the five-year-old gelding winner was a no-brainer for NRLW Newcastle Knights, NSW and Jillaroos hooker Olivia Higgins.
"I actually had another bet on and then I thought, 'Why aren't I on that? That's a roughie, Knight's Choice'," Higgins told the Newcastle Herald.
"I chucked $20 each way and nearly won about two thousand, so it was a great day."
The 32-year-old also backed No.9, Absurd: "I love the number nine."
Higgins is in training with the Jillaroos in the Blue Mountains ahead of their Pacific Championships Cup final against New Zealand at CommBank Stadium on Sunday, November 10.
After gym in the morning, the Jillaroos watched the race together in a theatre room at the hotel where they were in camp in the Blue Mountains.
Jesse Southwell, 19, is the Knights halfback and has been called into the Jillaroos camp this week as cover for injured Lauren Brown. She was lucky to scoop up Knight's Choice in a hat of sweeps.
"The race was happening, and he was back in 11th place or something like that, and I thought, 'That's alright, I didn't win the lolly bag', then out of nowhere, I saw the two horses cross the finish line, and I saw number eleven," she said.
"I thought, 'Oh my goodness, that's me.' I carried on, obviously."
Knights' communications officer Frank Barrett said he heard some staff had placed $5 bets with very few backing the winner.
For punter Kieren James, a random $10 bet placed last minute paid off with a $1000 win.
"I just thought I'd pick a bunch of random horses, I follow the Newcastle Knights so that was an obvious choice," he said.
It's one of the biggest days of the year on the race calendar, and that was reflected in the more than 60,000 bets placed on Sportsbet per minute this year.
"The Melbourne Cup is still by far our biggest event of the year and at the peak of the day we saw 63,205 bets per minute," Sportsbet's Sean Ormerod said.
"It's always a tough race to narrow down to pick just one runner and with the ability to select horses to finish in the Top 10, Same Race Multis were more popular than ever with our punters."
A total of $8.5 million was on offer again this year for the 3200-metre race around Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria. International horse Vauban was the cup favourite for the second year in a row for Irish trainer Willie Mullins.
However, it was Robbie Dolan on Knight's Choice, who ran into the history books by winning the Cup at a packed Flemington Racecourse. Entering the race as a rank outsider, the five-year-old won just clear of Warp Speed and Okita Soushi in a photo finish.
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