Barney Curley, the mastermind behind arguably the greatest betting coup of all time, has died at the age of 81.
Few men who have crossed the racing landscape can have divided opinion quite as successfully as the Northern Irishman, whose unlikely recovery from a bout of ravaging tuberculosis as a young man, then his decision to abandon plans for a career as a Jesuit priest and missionary, preserved him for a turbulent life in racing.
Barney Curley
The Racing Post report that born in County Fermanagh on October 5, 1939, Curley failed as both a punter and bookie in his early days but in the process learned lessons that would turn him into one of the most feared and fabled punters on either side of the Irish Sea.
He became both an owner and trainer of racehorses and will be forever remembered with the infamous Yellow Sam coup of June 25, 1975.
The Bellewstown master plan involved winning a dire race with “one of the worst horses I’ve ever owned” and revolved around the blocking of the only public phone at the track, the off-course firms’ hedging lifeline.
Yellow Sam went on to win at 20-1 with Curley watching from behind a gorse bush on the infield. Winnings equivalent to £1,4 million in today’s money were later revealed.
Curley trained his first winner when I’m Incommunicado, ridden by Willie Mullins, won at Naas in 1984 and sent out Magic Combination from his yard in Newmarket to win the 2000 Imperial Cup. He saddled his last runners in 2012.
He also nurtured some of the most exalted talent ever to grace British racing.
He fed a stream of good horses from Ireland to the Dickinson family in Yorkshire, including I’m A Driver and Gold Cup winner Silver Buck, and also bought another Gold Cup winner in Forgive ‘n Forget.
In the saddle, the likes of Frankie Dettori, Jamie Spencer, Tom Queally, Tommy Carmody and Declan Murphy all developed under Curley’s tutelage.
After the death of his son Charlie in a car accident at the age of 18 in 1995, Curley increasingly turned his focus on supporting the underprivileged in Zambia, setting up the Direct Aid for Africa (Dafa) charity in 1996 and often spending weeks at a time striving to improve health and education in Zambia.
