HORSE RACING fans were left astonished after 1000/1 outsider Kingdom Calling stormed to victory at Listowel.
The underdog began the 2.15pm John Lynch Memorial Maiden Hurdle as a 250/1 shot but that quadrupled after it got underway in Ireland.
Incredibly, punters could have raked in a four-figure sum had they bet as little as £1 on the horse moments before the conclusion of the race.
Kingdom Calling finished strongly to clinch victory ahead of pre-race 5/2 favourite Kazakh D’arthel.
That Danny Feeling, who was priced at 7/2, rounded out the top three.
But it was Kingdom Calling who grabbed the headlines, steered home by jockey Richard Deegan.
The remarkable odds were the centre of much discussion on social media as fans spotted the 1000/1 price on the Betfair Exchange.
One person said: “Kingdom Calling wins at Listowel! 
A 250/1 winner! 
“Yes you read that right, 250/1! 
The question is, did anybody back it? 
”
Another added: “Sometimes, there can be some magic over in Ireland.”
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A third replied: “250/1 SP for winner Kingdom Calling at Listowel will have people scurrying for record books.”
While a fourth simply responded: “Wow.”
YOU may be eligible to get a free £150 to help with your energy bills this winter.
A number of energy suppliers will be giving the discount on bills for struggling households this winter.
The help is being provided via the Government’s Warm Home Discount scheme.
The package sees energy suppliers give a £150 discount on the electricity bills of people claiming certain benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The support is not awarded as cash into your bank account but instead applied directly to your account by your energy supplier.
The credit you have in your energy account will increase by £150 so it can only be used on your energy bills.
If you have a traditional prepay meter, you will instead be sent a voucher which you can use to top up the meter in your home.
The support is given automatically to people claiming certain benefits including:
To get the money this year, you will need to be claiming these benefits during the qualifying week.
This is usually in August, however the official week has not yet been confirmed.
The Warm Home Discount scheme will reopen in October and it is likely we will get an update then.
It’s also important to know that not all energy suppliers are part of the scheme.
So even if you are claiming the eligible benefits, you may not receive the help.
According to GOV.UK, the following suppliers took part in last year's Warm Home Discount scheme. This means it is likely they will be a part of this year's too - although this has not been confirmed.
If your energy supplier is part of the scheme, they should contact you to let you know whether you are eligible, these letters usually come before January the next year.
The scheme opens in October and runs until March each year so your discount can be applied anytime.
Labour promised change and they certainly are delivering it.
They’ve created their own black hole in the public finances by forking out billions of pounds in pay rises for their union masters.
And another £8.3 billion to fund Ed Miliband’s fantasy new energy company that won’t produce any energy.
Now they’re rolling the pitch for big tax rises in the budget to fund their spending splurge.
The truth is we need stronger public services. The NHS needs more funding to cope with the pressures of an ageing population, but it also requires radical reform.
We must shift from obsessing about inputs and instead focus on outputs.
Starmer’s dour vision of ever higher spending and taxes isn’t inevitable.
We could save billions of pounds, and cut taxes, by cutting the fat off the British state.
By reforming the welfare system, Mel Stride and Rishi Sunak cut national insurance for millions of people.
And we could create further room for tax cuts. For starters, by releasing the additional 100,000 civil servants we took on because of Brexit and the pandemic.
My mission is to reclaim the low-tax, pro-business agenda and restore the Conservative’s reputation for sound money that we have lost in recent years.
My politics is shaped by my upbringing. Not from what my parents said, but what they did.
My mum was a secretary. My dad was an apprentice who set up his own small business out of his white van.
I saw every day how hard they worked.
At times it was tough. But they made it work and provided me with opportunities for which I’ll be forever grateful.
There are millions of small business owners like them around the country. They are the engine room of our economy which power our country.
But we don’t always make it easy for them. And I am in politics to change that.
Just as Margaret Thatcher created a culture of entrepreneurship in the 1980s that my parents benefited from, I want to drive forward a revolution in this country to make it the best place to start and scale up a business.
In Government, I always made sure I was on the side of small business. I froze fuel duty and cut duties on our great exports like whisky.
During the pandemic I slashed red tape so that restaurants and bars could provide outdoor seatings and takeaways, and more easily convert empty high street shops.
Shamefully, those changes have ended and our hospitality industry is once again in trouble.
But to unlock Britain’s immense potential we need an altogether more radical approach.
We need to free British workers from the reams of bureaucracy that get in the way.
There is no reason for small businesses or sole traders to be saddled with the same regulation as big corporations with huge back-office teams.
We need a tax system that rewards risk-takers, not punishes them. We should take advantage of our Brexit freedoms and change the VAT thresholds so that small businesses can keep and invest more of the money they make.
We should increase the thresholds to £100,000, as recommended by the Federation of Small Businesses, which would allow tens of thousands of businesses to have an additional untaxed turnover of £10,000.
That would allow them to hire more staff and invest in equipment that boosts our productivity.
The state does have an important role to play in all of this. But we need a small state that works, not a big state that fails.
So instead of the taxpayer subsidising low-value degrees, we should be funding the real skills of the future.
That’s why I am calling to redirect funding away from the worst performing 10 per cent of universities towards the biggest expansion in technical colleges and apprenticeships in a generation.
We should never again be in the position where we are reliant on foreign labour for brickies, plumbers and welders that help make this country what it is.
These are important and well-paid jobs that Brits should be doing.
And we need an energy policy that prioritises reliably cheap energy. Since 2000 our electricity prices have trebled. That has crippled British industry and tipped many businesses over the edge.
It means a fundamentally different energy policy where we are pragmatic about reaching net zero. There are no prizes for reaching net zero first.
I refuse to pursue net zero off the backs of working people. Instead of throwing more money at expensive renewables, we need a baseload of reliable energy from nuclear and gas that keeps bills lower for businesses and consumers.
This Labour Government seems intent on making things harder for working people at the upcoming budget.
I support shortening the contest so the new leader can hold this Labour Government to account for their broken promises when the eyes of the nation are watching.
If I am lucky enough to be elected leader, I will change the Conservative party, unite it around the serious answers to the big challenges facing the country, and put this dismal Labour Government out of its misery.
THE penultimate European Tour event is underway as many of darts’ biggest stars compete for the Swiss Darts Trophy.
Luke Littler returned to the Oche on Saturday night to beat Bruno ‘Beast’ Stockli 6-3, while World No 1 Luke Humphries sailed through to the third round with a 6-2 win against Richard Veenstra.
Michael van Gerwen will not feature this weekend after pulling out of the event on Thursday due to continued illness.
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SHOCKING injuries forced TWO fights on the same bill to be waved off following head clashes.
The gruesome finales marred the undercard of Terri Harper’s world title bout with Rhiannon Dixon.
Brandon Scott was left reeling from accidental collision in his super bantamweight contest with Calum Turnbull.
Then super featherweight Ibraheem Sulaimaan was left with a huge cut below his eye against Kevin Trana.
The two gory incidents happened in the space of an hour at Sheffield’s Canon Medical Arena.
Both Scott and Sulaimaan were handed victory via a Technical Decision (TD).
Welshman Scott, 21, and 25-year-old Scot Turnbull each landed heavy blows before suffering a brutal collision of heads.
Blood poured off from the forehead of the younger man, who walked backwards, peering at the floor dazed.
Referee Mark Lyson immediately signalled a head injury and called the fight off.
Sulaimaan, aka Spider, then finished with damage appeared even nastier after clashing heads with Nicaraguan Trana.
The Birmingham boxer, 23, appeared to have a deep cut around his right eye – with blood streaming down onto his neck and chest.
Once again Lyson intervened – asking a doctor to check out the 23-year-old’s eye.
However, there was little doubt that the bout would be called off – which it promptly was.
The unfortunate moments came on the night two-belt world champ Harper was taking on lightweight queen Dixon in an all-English showpiece.
ANGRY Phillip Schofield has blamed his downfall on a trio of leading figures at ITV — branding them the “three shs of showbiz”.
The telly veteran lets rip as he sits next to a desert island campfire on his new documentary show.
Among those he appears to take aim at in Channel 5’s Cast Away — which starts tomorrow — are his former This Morning co-host Holly Willoughby.
Another is thought to be This Morning editor Martin Frizell, who Phil seems to blame for letting him take the fall over “queuegate” when he and Holly were accused of pushing in to see the Queen lying in state.
Other targets could include ITV chief Dame Carolyn McCall.
Discussing how he was forced to leave This Morning after 22 years following a fling with a much younger man, Phillip, 62, rants: “They know how important that was to me.
“They know when you throw someone under a bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition is not good enough.”
He goes on: “People can be fake. They can be so fake with you when it’s all going well, and suddenly utter, utter betrayal.
“There are a lot of amazing people in morning television.
“I think there are only three sh*s. One of them is a coward who never stepped up in queuegate.
“One is a coward, because they never stepped up when I was being battered And the other is just brand-orientated.
“Not what you expect, not what you think you’re going to get.”
In a dig at his former management firm YMU, which still represents top TV talent, Phillip reveals they axed him by text.
He says: “I was suicidal and they sent me what looked like a cut and pasted text.
“Thirty one years. There is so much more I could say.”
Elsewhere in the three-parter which sees him spend ten days alone on a small island off Madagascar, Phillip hints the show is his showbiz swansong.
He says: “They’ve taken pretty much everything. Reputation, dignity, legacy, everything.
People can be fake. They can be so fake with you when it’s all going well, and suddenly utter, utter betrayal
Phillip Schofield
“I’m not bleating, I’m just getting it off my chest. And anyone who’s bitter about that, honestly, you can f* off ’cause I don’t give a s*t. I quit.”
Holly, 43, yesterday shrugged off the controversy, celebrating the third birthday of her wellness company Wylde Moon.
