'He was flying at home, it's not a total surprise' - 125-1 shock win at Ffos Las

Tuesday: Ffos Las

Once More For Luck added his name to the list of longest-priced winners in Britain, stunning punters at Ffos Las with a 125-1 victory, yet it was not the biggest surprise to his trainer.

The Ismail Mohammed-trained juvenile was among the least fancied runners of the 13 in the 6f maiden stakes, but arrived in west Wales on the back of a promising piece of work and was "flying" according to his trainer.

While the Queen's Constitution was odds-on in the betting, the son of Kodiac went off at a big price, having shown little when beating only one rival home on his sole racecourse appearance at Leicester.

Yet the favourite began to struggle a long way out while Once More For Luck got into a promising position under Rob Hornby and came out on top in the closing stages, fighting off strong challenges from debutant Manitou and the fast-finishing Immortal Beauty.

Mohammed said his colt had been unwell last week and his surprise completed an extraordinary turnaround.

"He wasn't well last week, I don't know why, but we were scared to run him," the Newmarket trainer said.

"This week we kept him more fresh but that's a big surprise for us.

"Last week he got better and better and enough for us to declare him. I asked his rider how he was and he'd said he was doing very well so we worked him a few days ago and he was flying. We said 'come on, let's give us something' and he has.

"It was a surprise to everybody, not totally for us, but we're happy with how he ran."

The trainer also revealed Once More For Luck could target another upset in the £200,000 Weatherbys Super Sprint Stakes at Newbury on July 16. He is still available at 100-1 for that contest with Paddy Power.

The victory was a first two-year-old winner of the season for trainer Mohammed, who was completing an across-the-card double following the victory of Nomasee at Wolverhampton earlier on Tuesday.

He added: "I hope this is the start of a good week for us. We'll have Zain Claudette in the Group 3 at York on Friday and some good horses out at Newmarket."

Once More For Luck was available at 328-1 on the Betfair Exchange and paid out at odds of 126-1 on the Tote.

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