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Barney Curley: 'It was one man's brains against the bookmakers - I'd outwitted the system'

Greatest Gambles 1

From 10 to 1, our countdown of the greatest gambles of all time. A new instalment will be published every weekday for the next fortnight. Today – No.1: Yellow Sam and an amateur riders' hurdle at Bellewstown in 1975


The background

Barney Curley might have become a Jesuit priest had he not contracted TB. Instead, he had bookmakers praying for forgiveness.

Curley quit the apostolic school after taking a year to recover from his illness and developed a range of business interests, which included running betting shops and gambling.

Success came and went but by 1975 he desperately needed to land a touch to get himself out of trouble after a string of losing bets.

Curley turned to Liam Brennan, who had horses for him on the Curragh, in search of a likely candidate and the trainer suggested Yellow Sam, of whom he said: "I think he's improved a bit." Which was just as well because the horse had shown scant form in nine runs over two seasons and not finished closer than eighth.

The build-up

Curley targeted an amateur riders' hurdle at Bellewstown, in which the modest quality of the opposition and the suitably quick ground would be ideal.

But winning the race would not be enough. He had to make sure he could get enough money on and get paid out at a big enough price to make sure he landed the huge jackpot he was aiming for.

So he planned with military precision how his team would back the horse in 300 shops in Ireland, putting their bets on just before the race and with such small stakes that nobody would realise what was going on.

Barney Curley and actor Padraic McIntyre at the phone box made famous at Bellewstown
Barney Curley and actor Padraic McIntyre at the phone box made famous at BellewstownCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Ordinarily, that off-course money would have been phoned back to the on-course betting market and smash the starting price. But Curley arranged for Benny O'Hanlon, who had worked in one of his shops, to occupy the sole phone box on the track 25 minutes before the race and stay there until the off.

"Benny got talking to some non-existent hospital in nearby Drogheda, where he had an aunt who was dying," Curley recalled. "It was all total nonsense but he carried it off brilliantly."

He left nothing to chance, even getting a lift to the races rather than arriving in his own flashy car for fear that might attract attention and hint at what was afoot.

The race

The race went perfectly to plan. Yellow Sam, ridden by leading amateur Michael Furlong, won comfortably by two and a half lengths.

So did the gamble. Curley's team of punters, betting in stakes ranging from £50 to £300, managed to get a total of £15,300 on the horse.

And O'Hanlon's occupation of the phone box, cutting an unwitting Bellewstown off from the outside world, meant Yellow Sam was returned at a starting price of 20-1.

The coup won Curley £306,000, which is the equivalent of over £2 million today. "It was quite simply one man's brains against the bookmakers," he said. "I'd outwitted the system."

Furlong, who was completely unaware of the gamble until he read about it in the Sporting Life the next day, said later: "It made me feel proud, partly because they'd picked me as the jockey to do the job."

Barney Curley: "I asked the vet if he could run on the Monday and he told me it was odds-against. We beat those odds"
Barney Curley: won more than £2 million in today's moneyCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The aftermath

Though some bookmakers were initially reluctant to pay out, they all did so eventually as no rules had been broken.

Curley took up training and landed further gambles, including another mighty coup in 2010, but he devoted much of his later life to the charity he founded which directly assists people in Africa, mostly Zambia. He died in 2021.

Yellow Sam himself never won again and was killed in a fall.


The scores

Audacity Nothing too audacious in finding a very winnable race – but the way the bets were placed was as audacious as it comes. 8

Ingenuity No-one ever pulled off something this clever. 10

Ease of win All went to plan. 7

Money won No gamble in our whole series won more for a single punter than Curley's £2m+ in today's terms. 10

Gamble marks 35


Read more in our Greatest Gambles series:

Hackler's Pride (2): The Druid's Lodge confederates and a legendary Newmarket gamble 

Destriero (3): 'I had £300,000 on' - Noel Furlong's £1.5 million Cheltenham pick-up 

Laddies Poker Two (4): a Royal Ascot win and Paddy Power's most costly Flat gamble in history 

Unsinkable Boxer (5): how Pipe and McCoy gave bookies a bloody nose with Cheltenham Festival 'certainty' 

Pasternak (6): Sir Mark Prescott and Pasternak's very public Cambridgeshire gamble 

Frankincense (7): 'He was a certainty' - Barry Hills and a famous Lincoln touch 

Exponential (8): Patrick Veitch and one of the biggest gambles of the modern era 

Reveillez (9): 'I couldn't let him run loose at 6-1!' - JP McManus makes a fortune at Cheltenham 

Great Things (10): 'Don't bother coming back if you get beat' - Albert Davison's Leicester words 

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