'I had £80,000 on to put the wheels back on the bike' - JP McManus's greatest Cheltenham Festival gambles

Ahead of our rare and exclusive interview with the legendary JP McManus, to be published in Sunday's Racing Post, we are bringing you a top piece related to the legendary owner and punter every day this week. Today, you can read Peter Thomas's rundown of his five greatest Cheltenham Festival gambles.

Our interview with McManus will be published online to Racing Post+ Ultimate subscribers at 6pm on Saturday, March 8. Not a subscriber? You can join up here right now with 40% off for your first six months – just enter the code ULTIMATE306M at the checkout to sign up for Cheltenham at the reduced monthly price of £30.

Mister Donovan

Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle, 1982

The significance of this gamble reaches way past the figures in a bookmakers' ledger or the pounds in a punter's pocket. "I often wonder whether I would have been able to have any of the others if Mister Donovan had been beaten," McManus pondered.

Mister Donovan was an unlikely vehicle for such a crucial punt, having been diagnosed with a heart murmur by vet Demi O'Byrne, leaving Edward O'Grady to eke out enough promise to encourage McManus to buy him.

Mister Donovan and Tommy Ryan are led in after winning the Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle and an estimated £250,000 for JP McManus in 1982Credit: Gerry Cranham

He turned up at the 1982 festival still a maiden, but his trainer kept the faith, to the point where the owner, having endured a torrid first day of the meeting, backed him from 7-1 to 9-2 favourite, and Tommy Ryan produced him at the final hurdle for a length-and-a-half victory over Spider's Well, owned, with no little irony, by O'Byrne.

"I don't remember quite how much we had on, but it was important at the time anyway," the bookie-turned-punter said later. Estimates put it at around £250,000, but for so many people it was worth so much more.

Reveillez

Jewson Novices' Handicap Chase, 2006

Perhaps the most famous of all the famous McManus punts was the one involving a former decent Flat horse from James Fanshawe's Newmarket yard who was set the task of landing the lolly in the 2006 Jewson Novices' Handicap Chase.

It was an event remembered less for the action on the track than for the brutal hand-to-hand combat in the ring, where the fearless punter asked the unflinching Scottish bookie Freddie Williams for a bet of £100,000 at 6-1 – and was accommodated without a discernible flinch.

Reveillez and AP McCoy win the 2006 Jewson Novices' Handicap Chase, landing a bet of £100,000 at 6-1 for JP McManus Credit: Mark Cranham

"I couldn't let him run loose at 6-1," was McManus's viewpoint, and despite a blunder three from home by the well-handicapped grey, the owner's confidence was justified with a length-and-a-quarter success, AP McCoy's first for his boss at the festival.

Williams may have believed that his day couldn't get any worse, but sadly he was wrong. McManus availed himself of a £5,000 each-way poke at his Kadoun in the Pertemps Final, and even a mistake at the final flight couldn't save the beleaguered bookie. When your luck's in.

Like-A-Butterfly

Supreme Novices' Hurdle, 2002

Even legends sometimes need a little help from the punting gods, and they were certainly on McManus's side when he, followed by an army of his compatriots and followers, looked to have 'done their dough' in spectacular fashion in the 2002 Supreme.

The money was down on the sparkling mare Like-A-Butterfly, who arrived at the festival on the back of a seven-race winning spree and was backed down to 7-4 favouritism. All seemed to be going well as the eight-year-old, prominent throughout, hit the front two from home, but by the last she was under threat from both the long-time leader, Martin Pipe's second favourite Westender, and Adamant Approach, a 12-1 shot from the yard of the then merely mortal Willie Mullins.

Supreme Novices' Hurdle winner Like-A-Butterfly was the festival's Irish banker in 2002 and netted another big payday for JP McManusCredit: Gerry Cranham

It was the latter who emerged as the chief threat, travelling much the best and edging into the lead when he dived at the flight and crumpled on landing, leaving Like-A-Butterfly, driven for all she was worth by Charlie Swan, to fend off the desperate renewed challenge of Westender and AP McCoy by a neck.

McManus thanked his lucky stars while bold layer Freddie Williams must have wondered what he'd done in a former life to have a looming £100,000 payday so cruelly turned into a £225,000 loss.

Alderwood

Grand Annual Handicap Chase, 2013

The winner of the 2012 County Hurdle had run only four times over fences by the time he arrived at Cheltenham a year later, with just one win to his name in a modest beginners' chase at Navan and a handicap mark that had risen by only 1lb.

So it was probably no surprise when a morning gamble gathered pace and he was smashed from 6-1 to 3-1 favourite, with McManus money quite probably responsible for much of the move.

AP McCoy drives Alderwood to a popular victory in the 2013 Grand Annual Handicap ChaseCredit: Patrick McCann

It's not as if Alderwood's light had been completely hidden under a bushel – he had finished second in a decent handicap chase on heavy ground at Punchestown last time – but he was clearly thought to be a well-handicapped beast, with the Racing Post analysis declaring that "this race had apparently been the plan all season". He delivered handsomely on that promise, skipping past the eventual runner-up Kid Cassidy, also in the McManus silks, at the bypassed second-last fence and pulling clear to win readily by a little more than three lengths.

It was a win, in the last race of the meeting, that secured the bragging rights for the Irish by 14-13, landing some hefty bets in the process.

Danoli

Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle, 1994

There was Time For A Run's 1994 Coral Cup, Istabraq's Champion Hurdle of 1998, so they say, and a host of others in the green and gold, but McManus's monumental punting wasn't all about his own horses.

Let's finish with one where the bold man from Limerick joined (or quite possibly led) the gamble on one of the great icons of the Irish turf, Danoli, who was not so much 'expected' in the 1994 Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle as needed by an entire racing nation.

Danoli and Charlie Swan return on a wave of Irish support after winning the 1994 Sun Alliance Novices' Hurdle

Tom Foley's great hero, backed into 7-4 favouritism, led from the fourth-last and never shirked the issue, staying on stoutly under Charlie Swan to see off Corrouge and land the cash. Swan punched the air and the hollering from the stands was so loud it seemed as though the whole of Ireland had emptied its bank account on the six-year-old and decamped to the Cotswolds for the week.

McManus admitted to having had £80,000 on, "to put the wheels back on the bike".

Read these next . . .

Kopeck De Mee shortens further for Martin Pipe as BHA handicapper admits he is restricted as to what mark he can give him 

Impressive 28-length Gowran bumper winner sold to JP McManus and now in training with Willie Mullins 

JP McManus lines up strongest Cheltenham Festival team yet with 50 per cent of favourites set to run in the famous green and gold 

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