American football and racing has been a topic recently, and although the Super Bowl was a fortnight ago with the last-minute victory of the Los Angeles Rams, we don`t want to deprive you of a story that has a racehorse owner who staked and lost a fortune on this world event.
The late turn in the Super Bowl proved to be extremely costly for racehorse owner and Houston businessman Jim McIngvale, who lost a staggering $9.5 million in the Cincinnati Bengals` loss in the big game.
McIngvale, better known as Mattress Mack, came desperately close to winning $16 million for the Bengals, but the Los Angeles Rams held on for the win very late. With just one minute and 25 seconds remaining, Cooper Kupp scored his second touchdown of the game to give the Rams their second Super Bowl title at 23-20.
McIngvale initially bet about $4.5 million on the Bengals before making another $5 million bet, the largest in Super Bowl history, putting $16,207,800 on the line via Caesars Sportsbook.
The 71-year-old owns the Gallery Furniture retail chain and is best known in racing as the owner of 2015 US champion Runhappy, who won six straight races, including the Breeders` Cup Sprint.
He won $2.75 million at last year`s Super Bowl when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, but there were other big losses, including a $2.4 million bet on Essential Quality in last year`s Kentucky Derby.
Although the bet on Essential Quality is considered the largest losing bet in racing history, McIngvale had hedged his bet through his company.
He created a no-lose scenario because the bet was linked to a promotion - which proved popular - in which anyone who bought a mattress worth $3,000 or more before the Derby would have received the mattress for free if the favourite had won.
