Interviewed in December, 2016, veteran professional gambler Barney Curley said he did not think he would ever have another bet but, for decades, the son of County Fermanagh was the scourge of the bookmaking fraternity on both sides of the Irish Sea. Indeed, in 1975, at the age of 37, Curley orchestrated what has become one of the most famous betting coups in British and Irish horse racing history.
Down on his luck after a series of adverse results, Curley turned to Curragh trainer Liam Brennan, with a view to ‘landing a touch’ and restoring his fortunes. Brennan identified a suitable candidate in the form of Yellow Sam, whose overall form was poor, having finished no better than eighth in nine starts, albeit on unfavourably soft ground, but had improved, according to his trainer. Yellow Sam was duly entered at Bellewstown on June 26, 1975 and, that day, Curley employed runners to place bets, between £50 and £300, at betting shops, large and small, in major towns across the country.
Bellewstown is a small, provincial racecourse in Co. Meath which, at the time, was serviced by a single public telephone, which was the only means by which betting shops could convey betting intelligence back to the course and influence starting prices. Curley dispatched his trusted friend Benny O’Hanlon, a thickset, tough-looking man, to occupy the telephone 25 minutes before the ‘off’ and not to surrender it, to anyone, under any circumstances. O’Hanlon played his part perfectly, carrying on a conversation with a fictitious hospital about his equally fictitious dying aunt until the race was underway and any damage was done.
All told, Curley wagered just over £15,000 on Yellow Sam and, with bookmakers unable to contact their representatives at Bellewstown and ‘lay off’ their liability, managed to protect a generous starting price of 20/1. Yellow Sam duly obliged, with a minimum of fuss, netting Curley in excess of £300,000, or the equivalent of £2.47 million, adjusted for inflation at 5.0% a year, on average, although no single betting shop faced a liability of over £6,000.
Curley originally trained as a Jesuit priest, until contracting tuberculosis, from which he took some time to recover; although no longer the force of old, at least in gambling terms, Curley focuses his attention on Direct Aid for Africa, the charity he founded in 1996, which has raised millions of pounds for children in Africa, mainly Zambia.