Long list of winning gambles contributed to the popular legend of Barney Curley

Yellow Sam provided a dramatic early moment in the gambling career of Barney Curley while the £2 million four-horse coup of 2014 amounted to a climactic conclusion, but there were many other successes along the way.

Some were acknowledged by the man himself, others were attributed to him by rumours of wildly varying reliability and strict accounting is not available for any of them, but there is no denying various Barney legends have enlivened many a bar-room chat about racing over the decades.

The Derby features prominently in Curley's story, not least that of 1972, which could have ended disastrously and perhaps sent his life in an entirely different direction. Curley was convinced of the case for Roberto and backed Lester Piggott's mount at odds of 7-2 to the tune of £10,000, which would be worth more than ten times as much now.

"A desperately close thing," was the commentator's verdict as Roberto and Rheingold flashed past the post at Epsom alongside each other. There was a wait for the photo-finish verdict, followed by a stewards' inquiry, but at the end of it, as on so many subsequent occasions, the bookmakers owed Curley serious money.

"If Lester had got beaten, there would be no way back," he reflected many years later. "I would have been cleaned out. I'd go as far as to say that I wouldn't be here today, at least not in racing."

Benny The Dip's jockey Willie Ryan received a pre-Derby visit from Barney CurleyCredit: Phil Smith

Reference Point in 1987 is thought to have been another important Derby winner for Curley, as was Benny The Dip a decade later, when his investment was £10,000 each-way at 10-1. Those bets derived from form assessment rather than inside information, although he did seek to make his own contribution on the latter occasion, visiting Willie Ryan two nights before the race to shore up the jockey's confidence.

"Willie, I've got a big interest in Benny The Dip," he recalled telling the rider, adding later: "It didn't do any harm to tell him that he was going to win the Derby." For Ryan, such an intervention must surely have amounted to an unexpected extra helping of pressure; the jockey set sail for home at the top of the straight and resisted the late charge of Silver Patriarch by mere inches.

The story of Curley's pre-Derby motivational chat with Ryan is recounted in The Sure Thing, Nick Townsend's book about the gambler's exploits, written with his cooperation. It also tells how, in the years after Yellow Sam had made Curley into a man bookies feared, he switched successfully to juvenile races, employing Coventry-winning trainer Paddy Norris to fire them up on the Curragh before selling them into British yards not noted for doing well with two-year-olds.

Yellow Sam: a perfectly executed gamble that netted Barney Curley a fortune

The early strike-rate for that system was seven first-time wins out of eight, with the winnings each time estimated at £50,000 or more. Among them was Cathmaria, a compound of the names of two of Curley's children, who won a Haydock seller under Willie Carson after shortening from 14-1 to 13-2.

More notable victories were achieved by another horse Curley sold on, while maintaining a close interest in his career. Forgive 'n Forget went on to land a major gamble in the Coral Golden Hurdle Final at the 1983 Cheltenham Festival for his new connections, and Curley had a substantial share of the profits.

Townsend's book records that Curley had been warned off by the Irish authorities over a debt to a bookmaker, which resulted in security staff at Cheltenham turning him away that day. He is said to have gained access by another route and participated in the support that took the chestnut's odds from 4-1 to 5-2.

Silver Buck, another champion jumps horse to have passed through Curley's hands, was backed by him in the King George VI Chase of 1979. Five years later, he started training for himself and soon found he could make the bookies pay that way too, saddling I'm Incommunicado to win a Naas bumper under Willie Mullins, bagging £120,000 after the odds tumbled from 20-1 to 5-2.

Curley was not above the use of tactics that would alienate many punters. When Threshfield won at a Sandown evening card in the summer of 1991, the morning papers had a 7lb claimer down to ride. John Reid took over and guided the horse to a comfortable, well-backed win. Alluding to the home secretary, Curley's comment at the time was: "Kenneth Baker says we've got to help ourselves. Well, I have."

Magic Combination was an important horse for his owner-trainer on more than one occasion, including when he landed the Imperial Cup of 2000. The previous year, Curley made around £200,000 when Magic Combination was one of two winners for him at the Galway Festival. "We were so confident beforehand that we took a case of champagne over with us in the horsebox," said his assistant, Andrew Stringer.

Curley took real pride in his training ability and felt goaded into a dramatic response when his friend Tommy Stack told him to pack it in and stick to betting. He persuaded bookmakers to lay him £126,000 to win £275,000 that he could train ten winners in the final three months of 1987 and got over the line three days before Christmas. He sought odds about repeating the feat in the first three months of 1988 and got no takers.

Read more on Barney Curley:

'He was everything to me' – Frankie Dettori pays tribute to Barney Curley

Alan Byrne: not only did Barney make the world more interesting, he made it a better place (Members' Club)

Barney Curley, legendary punter and former trainer, dies aged 81

'He got under people's skin but men like him are few and far between'

'Nobody will win as much on horseracing this century' – the very best of Barney

'Someone clearly told him what John was saying and he came storming out'

The Front Runner is our latest email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a three-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday