The late Barney Curley, who died in May, 2021, aged 81, was the mastermind behind some of the most famous betting coups in history. The one that brought him to prominence, though, was the ‘Yellow Sam’ coup, which he orchestrated at Bellewstown in June, 1975.
Yellow Sam was a moderate hurdler in the care of Curragh-based trainer Liam Brennan, who, at the behest of Curley, was laid out to land a ‘touch’ in an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle. Top Irish amateur Michael Furlong was booked for the ride and Curley employed a team of men to place relatively small bets at starting price, just before the ‘off’, at betting shops throughout Ireland. In so doing, he prevented drawing unwanted attention to himself, but also took the additional precaution of having an associate occupy the only public telephone at Bellewstown for half an hour, so that on-course bookmakers could not receive intelligence from the betting shops.
In any event, Yellow Sam won easily at odds of 20/1 and, in so doing, landed bets worth over £300,000, or £2,000,000 by modern standards. However, by having his men place bets judiciously, according to the size of the betting shop, Curley made sure that no single shop paid out more than £6,000.