Martin Pipe's greatest Cheltenham punts - and the one that topped them all in a Haydock seller

Martin Pipe has recalled the extraordinary year in which he pulled off two of the greatest coups the Cheltenham Festival has ever seen – yet claimed both were put in the shade by a monster plunge in a Haydock seller in 1980.

Pipe was speaking to the Racing Post for a major interview in Sunday's newspaper in which he discussed his unique training methods, the dark days that followed a wholly unjustified but devastating attack in a primetime ITV documentary and the famous punts that marked his extraordinary career.

Many of those came at the Cheltenham Festival, perhaps most famously in 1998 when 5-2 favourite Unsinkable Boxer romped home in what is now the Pertemps Final a few minutes after Pipe told Sir Anthony McCoy he was about to partner "the biggest certainty that will ever walk out onto this racecourse".

"He was working better and better all the time," said Pipe. "I told the owner the night before the race that he had already won. We told everyone to back him. It was no secret. I used to love to tip winners to the public. I liked to make people happy."

In the same year, French import Blowing Wind netted a £50,000 bonus when completing the Imperial Cup-County Hurdle double.

"We honestly thought he couldn't get beat," said Pipe. "I told everybody he would win and I had a decent bet on him for both races. It was no holds barred. It wasn't about the betting, though. It was about being proved right. We did the same with Olympian. I told Scu before Christmas he would do the double at Sandown and Cheltenham."

Yet while those victories came on the biggest stage, Pipe picked out the Makerfield Selling Handicap Hurdle at Haydock on Saturday, January 5, 1980 as "the best race I ever won".

"The horse [Carrie Ann] had been off for a year but we got her fit," he added. "There were lots of racecourse bookmakers in those days and we had £30 to £1,000 with every one of them. Honestly, every one. At one point Chester [Barnes] said to me that one of the bookmakers hadn't altered the odds. 'Well, go in again!' I said back to him.

"It really was fantastic. It was like winning the football pools. I won loads and loads and loads."

Read more from Martin Pipe in The Big Read, available in Sunday's newspaper or online for Members' Club Ultimate subscribers from 6pm on Saturday. Click here to sign up.

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