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That touches on the uncomfortable truth that racing depends on punters losing. It always makes me smile when the racecard contains a message from the Chairman of the racecourse wishing everyone “an enjoyable and profitable day’s racing.” If he was being honest he would say “I hope you lose on every race apart from the last when will let you have a bit back because it will encourage you to come back again.”
Maybe he made mugs of the bookies
Can’t recall the year, let alone the race but at an Ebor Meeting circa 15 years ago two familiar on-course bookmakers, Leslie Steele and Mick Fletcher, were indulging in a post-race love-in with Curley: all back slaps, handshakes and knowing grins, presumably because he’d landed a punt that Steele and Fletcher had accommodated and then hedged: everyone’s a winner
So perhaps it would be more accurate to say maybe he made mugs of some of the bookies
Hardly a revelation that, admittedly
This is in today’s Racing Post and goes with the you tube pictures posted yesterday by YEATS.
A sleepy January afternoon’s racing at Folkestone in 2005 was going according to plan for At The Races on-course reporters Luke Harvey and John McCririck, until all of a sudden it wasn’t.
The peace was broken by renowned punter Barney Curley, who interrupted the live broadcast after taking umbrage at comments made by McCririck after the previous race.
Cristoforo, trained by Curley, had been forecast to go off the odds-on favourite but drifted before the off out to 11-4 and was eventually pulled up before the last, leading McCririck to call for an inquiry.
Curley’s now-legendary lambasting of both Harvey and McCririck was captured perfectly by the cameras and has remained one of racing’s most memorable television moments ever since.
Luke Harvey, racing broadcaster
I hadn’t actually been presenting that long. Since I’d given up riding I’d been a pundit but then started moving into presenting and John McCririck and I were sent to Folkestone.
I always got on really well with John and we worked well together. On the day Barney Curley’s horse was a short-priced favourite but it was pulled up relatively early on.
So John, as was his way, was going crazy. He was saying the Jockey Club had to look into it and there should be an inquiry. He was jumping up and down about it.
Anyway, Barney was in the weighing room waiting to see the stewards. Someone clearly told him what John was saying and he came storming out. I had my back to him and the producer said “look out behind you”.
I turned round and I saw this red-faced man coming straight at me. I’d never met Barney before in my life and it felt a bit like fending off someone at the pub. He was so wild, I just couldn’t believe it.
He verbally attacked us for the first 30 seconds and even in my fledgling broadcasting career, despite me getting a right pasting, it very soon dawned on me that I was part of television gold.
I kept on half-antagonising him during the interview where he proceeded to lambast myself, John and Matt Chapman, who wasn’t even there.
The thing you don’t understand from just watching it is just how loud it all was. It was a quiet afternoon at Folkestone and Barney was shouting his head off.
It was quite extraordinary the whole thing. John loved it and beyond the initial shock and fearing for my life, I knew I was part of something special so I was just trying to keep it going.
The bit that everyone remembers is when he called me an under-achiever, which is so ironic because the polar opposite is true and I’d been a total overachiever.
It’s so compelling because it was totally real, there was no planning or acting. Barney’s absolutely livid, I’m like a timid schoolboy and John was very subservient, which was most unlike him.
I met Barney once more after that and he couldn’t have been nicer to me. Rewatching it is like seeing an episode of Fawlty Towers; you know what’s coming but you keep seeing different things every time.
I can’t seem to go anywhere and not have people ask me about it. I was in Dubai and Mike de Kock came up to me and said he knew who I was because he’d seen Barney Curley give me an earful.
I’ve still got a picture of the three of us standing together on my wall at home and it’s something I hold quiet dear from the early days of my broadcasting career.
Ironically, I would imagine that once I finish broadcasting it’s still going to be almost the main thing I’m remembered for!
Robert Cooper, racing broadcaster
I can remember the whole incident really clearly. I was at Folkestone doing a feature about the racecourse so wasn’t even part of the day’s coverage.
I was there interviewing a few people and Barney Curley was on my list. I heard him shouting and I thought I’d just sidle up behind the cameras and wait till he was finished being interviewed by Luke.
Obviously things changed when I heard all the ranting. He was calling Luke a failed jockey I remember and I was just stood enjoying the roasting in the background.
I was shifting a bit closer but soon realised I would be better off not getting into Barney’s eye-line really. He was very angry, so needless to say I avoided asking him anything afterwards.
I never followed Barney and only knew about his so called gambles afterwards, but I will quote Ian Davis on here
“The bookmakers aren’t the enemy – other punters are the enemy.”
Which is what Nick Mordin says and why its important to try and find other ways of finding winners. If we’re all backing the same horse then the bookies will shorten it’s price. QED
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.I’m a bit puzzled by the claim that ” he was no friend of the punter ” , punters have no friends , the bookie wants your money , most times they,ll get it , fellow punters are taking the price of your price …there no friend , gambling is like masturbation …best done alone
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Point I believe Ian is making HDLG is:
Punters spend their time and money studying “form”, making their bet on that form and odds available… Only to be beaten by a Barney gamble whose chance has been “disguised” (impossible to find assessing form and odds).Value Is EverythingExactly that, GT.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Completely agree with what Ginger and Ian are saying. His gambles were at the expense of just about every single other person involved in those events.
I don’t see the need to gush over him just because he has died, I very much doubt he would care either way anyway. So what if he did charity work? Plenty of others manage to do that without fiddling horse races.
Guys as always you have the right to your view but as shown by a number of topics on here there is punts and sculdugery taking place in racing on a daily/weekly basis , Sir Gordon Richards once asked his fellow jockeys before the start of a race ” who,s on for today ” …it turns out all had been told prior today wasn’t the day ….someone must have got a bollocking after weighing in !! , if it was only form we had a make a judgement with , there,s been worse people in racing than Barney …cough Gigginstown ..cough
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Lots of bitterness from people who would give their right arm to be on one of his gambles.
“ Lots of bitterness from people who would give their right arm to be on one of his gambles.”
What absolute nonsense.
I – and I am sure many others here – am perfectly capable of spotting a plot (back to last winning mark, back to right trip, right ground, significant jockey booking etc) without having my card marked.
Yes, this sort of thing is rife in racing – it’s part of the game at the bottom end – but that isn’t any reason to celebrate a particularly blatant exponent of it.
Barney Curley’s gambles were at the expense of: every other runner’s connections in the race, and every punter who used the form book to have a bet.
I have always suspected that those who make heroes out of people like Curley can’t actually read a form-book, and rather like the idea of racing being some sort of Runyonesque wall-to-wall den of iniquity, where zero graft in terms of form study is required and you just wait to get a tip.
They probably hate Group 1 races because they are full of triers!
Anyway, Curley definitely wouldn’t care one bit what anyone thinks of him – he certainly didn’t when he was alive.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Ian I’m struggling to understand your arguement , everyday owners and trainers run horses at the wrong distance , wrong ground , not trying etc merely to reduce a hcap mark so they can take advantage when and where they want to , gambling is more than reading a form book , it’s also reading the markets , if on course sometimes I’m judging the jockey/trainer as well as the horse , I remember going to the Cumberland bell 14 years ago , I was stuck between 2 horses when I watched about 30 people gather outside the paddock and grab a word with Karl Burke , then as the others jocked up I watched Karl and Elliott his jockey have a good conversation Inc much pushing out indicated by Mr Burke ….instructions clear let’s say , played the 33,s twice before retiring to the stand and watched as Bold Marc did indeed win the bell , sometimes a bit of common sense comes in handy , today was his day and everyone had come to see and enjoy it
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Loads of holier-than-thou bollocks being spouted on here. Everyone loved to read and hear about a Curley plot, anyone who says otherwise is full of shizen.
BUY THE SUN
HDLG,
I sympathise with your evident struggle, but I can’t make it any clearer.
Racing – especially at the bottom – is full of rogues (loveable or otherwise) and Barney Curley was IMO one of the biggest.
I don’t see that as anything to celebrate and the fact he did charity work (which he publicised heavily) is irrelevant.
And calling McCririck a “take out merchant” when Curley himself was a colossal take-out merchant was hilarious hypocrisy.
Contrary to what TTC says, not “everyone” loved reading about the plots and IMO racing needs fewer Barney Curleys, for it has enough integrity issues as it is.
But I have been in and around the game 40 years plus and I am well aware lots of people love all the Runyonesque skulduggery and will always defend it.
One thing is for sure – Curley made fools out of the Jockey Club and their Stewards time and time again.
But then that’s not exactly hard, is it?
The Brains Trust they are not.
“Pass the Port!”
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"If you are looking at folk ruining the integrity of racing, look at the Coolmore battalions / peleton in the Derby, and other once-famous races. Curley is/was an easy target for holy types.
And charity work is not “irrelevant”. If it was published or not, the man did plenty of good.
BUY THE SUN
Lots of interesting views here. Curley polarised opinion in life and is doing so after he has gone as well. No doubt he would be quite pleased by that!
I recognise it must be have been frustrating for form students or for the connections of other runners when one of Curley’s hacked up when the money was down.
However, I agree with TTC. Isn’t there a case of sour grapes here? Yes, we have all landed a nice bet or two on a horse we have spotted is well handicapped or got something in its favour. But I doubt any of us have taken the bookies to the cleaners like Curley did. Every punter fantasises about doing that. Curley did it – and if the fourth leg of his yankee had won in 2010 it would have been to the tune of £20 million.
No matter what you think of him, the intelligence and planning behind these coups was remarkable. To pull off something like that with moderate horses is just as skilful as training a Derby winner, maybe more so.
Trainers try to use the handicap system to their advantage every day. That is never going to go away. And given the dismal levels of prize money now, I think we will see more attempted coups. How else can owners make it pay?
And I don’t really understand the “take out” argument. That sounds like saying punters are obliged to lose for the good of racing!
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