McBride was fined £1500, which to me seems to be somewhere between 'very reasonable' and 'like getting off lightly'. Lot's of people will have backed the odd-on favourite on the course on the day. These people likely threw away their tickets and so, even when multiple online bookies announced that they'd be paying out on the 4-6 fav Fyre Cay (which came 2nd), this will have been no use to them.
With that in mind I'd at least have hoped for a bit of contrition on account that this mistake had taken place. Instead though the BBC articles reveals that McBride actually bet on his horse winning a tidy £600. Again, that's fair enough as it was a longshot, so who can blame the owner for having a punt on what he thought at the time was a horse with an outside hope. What get's my goat though, is when Mcbride states "I had £10 each way and was hoping she might scrape into the first three as a fun bet. That's all. The fine's £1,500, so I'm still £1,000 out of pocket."
There's an air to this of bemoaning the fact that the winnings from this bet didn't covering the fine he received for this horrendous error. I'm glad I wasn't one of those on the favourite, and then read that, as I'd be majorly annoyed at the punishment and response! You can't make this stuff up!
