October is the month of the devil - even the pro punters say so

Halloween is not until the final day of October, but the month will have scared the living daylights out of punters long before then if the first week of it is anything to go by.

"I can feel the water coming through the phone at me," laughs pro punter Johnny Dineen. "I'm getting wet every time I answer a call with punters crying about the week they've had! It's been rough."

Rough is one word for it. Since Sunday, the first day of October, there have been eight odds-on shots in Ireland and a staggering seven of them have been beaten, the sole exception being Sharjah, who has spent most of his life defying statistics anyway, going chasing at the age of ten and winning a Galway Hurdle off top weight. He has always been an outcast.