PIRATES captain Bjarne Pedersen admitted a draw "was a fair result" after his side saw an eight-point lead evaporate following injury to Troy Batchelor.
Poole Castle Cover had romped into a 22-14 advantage before it all went wrong for them in front of a 4,000 crowd at Wimborne Road and thousands more watching Sky Sports' coverage on TV.
First Batchelor crashed out of the meeting while comfortably leading heat four when he smashed into the air fence coming off the pits bend on the third lap.
Then Craig Boyce and a far from fully race fit Jason Doyle conceded a 5-1 in race seven as Swindon halved their deficit.
Swindon, smelling blood, won the re-run 5-1, all of a sudden it was 24-24 and weakened Poole were up against it.
A brilliant Piotr Swist ride in heat 10 behind race winner Jason Crump restored Pirates' advantage at 32-28 before Leigh Adams and Lee Richardson hit straight back with a Swindon 5-1 that levelled it at 33-33.
With Adams beating Crump from behind to win race 13 and Edward Kennett trailing Swindon pair Tomasz Chrzanowski and Charlie Gjedde going into the third lap of the penultimate heat, it looked as though it was all over for Poole.
But Kennett dived hard under Gjedde on the third lap to split the Robins duo and restrict them to a 4-2 and throw Pirates a lifeline.
When Crump and Pedersen outgated Richardson and Adams in the final race, the Dorset club were on the 5-1 that would have won them the match, and earned them a run-off for the bonus point.
Richardson, however, dug deep to dive under Pedersen into second place on the second lap before the Dane replicated the move on the Brit on the pits bend third time round.
Just as Poole's fans were beginning to celebrate a dramatic last-gasp triumph, Richardson silenced them by scorching past Pedersen on the back straight to force his way into second spot again and get the 4-2 that ended Pirates' 13-match winning home run.
Pedersen, whose team last lost at home 48-45 against Reading on August 16, said: "It was a fair result.
"I don't think we deserved to lose, especially when we lost Troy to injury when we did.
"Of course I would have liked to have got second in the last race, but sometimes it doesn't go your way.
"I was in second, then third, then second, then third again. It was crazy but I just couldn't get any speed off the corners, I was getting too much power and the back wheel was spinning too much.
"That was the problem. Lee got better speed out of the corners than I was.
"Also, I knew I couldn't just follow Jason out in the dirt on the first corner because Leigh is quick on the white line. I needed to cover inside and out.
"It was a tough race, but a draw is not bad considering we lost Troy so early in the meeting because he was going good.
"It was a big blow to us. If Troy had not been injured I'm sure the result would have been different.
"But we are still in the hunt for the title. There are still a lot of meetings to go. Let's just hope that Troy is not badly injured."
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