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Bingo! All four win in the Curley-connected gamble.
I’m highly impressed with the connections’ ability to get these horses spot-on on the same day. Top training performances, excellent placement, seemingly no leaks and what looks like a perfect gamble superbly executed. The actual amount won will no doubt increase exponentially over the months and years…
Someone on RUK described Curley as ‘the punters’ friend’. You’ll find that Barney Curley’s best friend is generally Barney Curley. However, the tiresome, narcissistic, self-publicist does do a lot of good work for charity (as he repeatedly mentions).
Nevertheless it’s a top punt and I doff my hat.
Mike
Kinda paradoxical… simultaneously a punters friend whilst robbing them blind with his insider trading. All whilst making a mockery of whatever integrity the sport holds. Also, donating stolen money to a self aggrandising charity does not a benevolent altruist make.
As a non-punter, this was frankly horrible to watch. He would be thrown in jail in pretty much any other money orientated walk of life… or at least get a stern denunciation in Private Eye.
If I’m going to admire any training performance, it would be taking great care, patience and expertise to get a legitimate champion to perform at the Cheltenham Festival. Not this cynical abuse of the system.
I hope the bookies don’t pay out a penny.
Handicap racing leads itself wide open to "manipulation" of the weights with horses running regularly oven inappropriate distances, on ground that doesn’t suit etc., along with the obvious non triers.
Bookmakers love such races and that’s why they sponsor so many of them. For them to start bleating, as for once they have been stung, is a bit rich to be honest.
While such types of race exist, and the prizemoney offered is so poor, the temptation will always be there (the total winnings for all 4 winners today was little more than £8000).
You have to admire the skill involved in pulling this off, especially as some of the horses were returning from protracted layoffs.Bookmakers love such races…For them to start bleating, as for once they have been stung, is a bit rich to be honest.
Sorry, straw man argument: no bookmakers are ‘bleating’. All the ones I’ve heard are saying "Fine, no problem, paying out."
Mike
I doubt if the big bookmakers have lost a lot. They have systems now to detect this stuff and are particularly wary of lucky 15s and accas. Apparently Paddy Power have lost up to £1m but this may just be spin.
I know my lucky 15s are usually restricted to about 5p.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some independent bookies have been caught out.
Difficult not to admire on the face of it, but it was a conspiracy. The fact that many have little sympathy for those who suffered by paying out, shouldn’t change the fact that those not in it – millions – were misled in order to line the pockets of the conspirators.
I’d be surprised if the BHA don’t change the rules of racing on the back of this to allow bans – perhaps very lengthy ones – ‘on the balance of probability’. Forumite, ‘wit’, might care to comment on the practicalities of such a change.
I think many would have been less peeved if connections hadn’t treated us like fools in their post-race quotes, like ‘I don’t know about betting.’
A watershed, today, imo, and, on the balance of probability, a bad day for the sport
The only people he’s robbing are other punters. This is no glamorous Robin Hood type affair. It’s just twisting the rules to manipulate the market, effectively a smutty form of insider dealing.
Whether he does it to expose the limitations of the ‘system’ (which it does do) as some kind of way of embarrassing the authorities, just takes a perverse pleasure out of getting one over on them, simply wanted the cash or perhaps all of the above, what he did do was ensure that anyone having a bet on those races had the odds unfairly stacked against them.
How about – the handicapper withdraws the handicap mark for a horse like Eye Of The Tiger. Stone last, tailed off, beaten hundreds of lengths in its most recent starts. The handicapper should just withdraw the mark when a horse puts up a series of efforts such as that.
I can understand some finding it admirable but, for me, a coup like this is just a form of dishonesty, and a slap in the face for owners and trainers who have horses trying and who struggle daily to operate in an honest fashion. Playing the system is one thing, this just stunk.
If I hear "but its what attracts people to the game" again today, I’ll put my foot through the laptop screen.
My initial hook into racing aged 9 or 10 was through the colour and excitement of two of its greatest days, namely the Epsom Derby and The Grand National. Leisure betting in the offices as a teenager was predicated on a Pipe/Francome front runner or a Jack Berry/John Carroll 2yo, bets where I would generally always get a run for the few bob I put down. The advent of the exchanges and its 102% model moved me up a few notches on the betting front and by and large its been very fair to me over the years. Betting on racing is a wonderful, totally engrossing pursuit at its purest.
What didn’t attract me to racing was Curley and his attitude, his Pyongyang style stable, insiders only, the bitter, hard done-by routine, despite having taken millions from the sport, largely through deception.
If Martinez announced on Friday he was playing his reserve team at Stevenage on Saturday, then put his strongest team out before kick-off there’d be uproar, in Racing they’ll tell you he was a legend, a character, a magnet for the sport.
You’d wonder for how much longer the bookmakers will put up with the current handicapping of unexposed horses in the UK.
Watershed indeed.
"The only people he robbed were other punters". Please explain.Punters lose all the time, every day,everyplace.Every winner you back is paid from the losses of other punters. Does that bother you?
It bothers me when I effectively have no chance of winning because someone has been disguising the ability of their horses in order to make a dirty pound at my expense. Not that I had a bet, but in principle.
It did not seem to bother the punters
"Once the name Barney Curley was put into the mix – although there is no official confirmation he was involved – there is no question a lot of the bets placed would have been from punters with no knowledge of any plot but who were simply joining in the gamble." Corals.Incidentally is it not interesting that Corals called it a plot(as in communist plot)not a gamble(which is legal)or a coup which is broader than gambling.Corals would have you believe the "plotters" broke the law(which they did not)
It did not seem to bother the punters
"Once the name Barney Curley was put into the mix – although there is no official confirmation he was involved – there is no question a lot of the bets placed would have been from punters with no knowledge of any plot but who were simply joining in the gamble." Corals.A bookmaker speaking on behalf of punters is like a butcher speaking on behalf of cattle.
And what of those punters who had bets on before the plunge gained momentum or backed any of the horses in question when they were blatantly plugged?
You wouldn’t have any other professional sport accept such blatant "gamesmanship" from any participant.
Also, what would have happened if the connections of the beaten horses all withdrew their runners as the goalposts had been shifted through no fault of their own?
cormack what’s your view on Sir Mark Prescott isn’t this what he does day in day out? this happens once in a blue moon im happy that some punters jumped on and made a few quid it like robbing the rich giving to the poor for BC… bookies dont cry when they take peoples machine money. plus would anyone really bet big money in them races unless they new something?
It is not how I want racing Cormac it is how racing is.When a big punter comes in and wallops the Bookie I am delighted.I love to see the punter winning.Barney trained his own horses because he could not trust other yards to follow his instructions.It costs a heck of a lot of money to train your own horses and the only way to make racing pay for the owner is to have a bet.It is not like Barney is betting at the track daily.How many times a year does Curley distract the average punter?Once,Twice, Three times?Come on you advocates for the losers.
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