An “$18 Pick 5” will seldom make you a fortune. But on Sunday (May 6), a Texas woman got lucky. The woman, who chose to remain unnamed, bet on four different horses leading up to the Kentucky Derby. Then, she bet on the winner of the main event, and it turned out that she’d predicted accurately, according to ABC News. Her picks won her $1.2 million.
Justify, the Kentucky Derby winner, collected $1.24 million for his hard work on the track and the Texas woman who bet on him collected her prize, too. ABC News reports that she’d made winning predictions beginning with Sunday’s eighth race, betting on Limousine Liberal who won the Churchill Downs Stakes.
Limousine Liberal’s history suggested that it could be a winner but this woman took risks, too. And in hindsight, they were the right ones. She predicted a win from Funny Duck, whose record was 39-1, for the Pat Day Mile and he won. Then, she bet on Yoshida for the Old Forester Turf Classic, though his record was a dangerous 9-1. Justify’s win was the safest, with a track record of 3-1.
The Austin woman broke a record herself. In fact, she has the second largest Derby payout in history, the first being a $1.7 million wager in a 2005 Superfecta bet, NBC Sports notes. Rachel Bagnetto, the spokeswoman for Retama Park, told ABC News that this kind of fortuity was “extremely rare.” She continued, “To bet that little amount of money and win $1.2 million is unheard of. In fact, it’s the first time it’s happened at Retama.”