Barney Curley

Plenty of punters would have latched on as the winners started going in.Take away the insider bets and the bookies would still have lost on these races in my opinion.
 
I agree with Luke on this.... I dont have much of a problem with these coups, lets be honest here, how much of the 25s was laid??

The horses's SP were what they were partly is aprtly due to the offices smashing it in as well.
 
We are focusing on how it looks from the outside but consider it from my father's perspective. A life time racing fan and 50c cross doubles man. Puts his bets on around 11am each morning having studied some form. Will pick out ten horses and split them into two groups of five.

He'd have looked at AOA and said to himself "I wonder will he be given a hard race. He's a decent horse but it's a long season and you know how Fame & Glory went on his first run. but at the prices, I'm willing to take a chance". Now he gets to the Chris Grant runner and says "duck eggs, not out for two years, interesting jockey booking but who else would he have ridden in the race, no chance. Better go for the fav who has form in the book". Now he was making a judgement on AOB's runner of lengths i.e. would he be fully ridden out, whereas with the Grant horse there was nothing to go on. sometimes 50/1 shots win after 2 years off, but they aren't normally backed into 2/1 in a scam, which is what it is!!

So it's not just the outsiders you wonder about, but the average punter who doesn't gamble with the computer in front of them. I used to think "well done lads, taken the bookies for a ride" but it happens so often now with the like sof Byrnes, Curley, Martin and AOB (if you want to include him in), that something needs to be done. Remember, they changed the John Dunlop/Mark Prescott rule which stopped them upping a horse from 7f to 1m6f, so they can implement change if they want to.
 
So long as gambling is linked to the sport, then landing coups will always be part of the game. I don't have a problem with it if it's all done 'within the rules'. I wouldn't be surprised if the bookies were the reason the other one got beat.
 
Ww, are you seriously suggesting bookies don't ensure certain horses don't win?

I got it straight from thje mouth af a bookie acquaintance one day at the racing.

Quote: We can get anything beat here.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Ww, are you seriously suggesting bookies don't ensure certain horses don't win?

I got it straight from thje mouth af a bookie acquaintance one day at the racing.

Quote: We can get anything beat here.
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Ah, you mean the Scottish mafia. Not the high street bookmaking firms. Why didn't you say?
 
I don't think bookies can guarantee that a certain horse will win (or lose) any more than the weight of punters' money and hopes will, DO. Too many variables. They could bribe a jockey to do his best to lose, but if, say, the plot was for the horse to be sent too soon to the front and burn out, they'd be left with egg on the faces if the horse was tactically boxed by other jockeys riding to true orders. They must certainly come up with offers that will interest some trainers, though, who may well pass specific instructions to younger riders with no say in accepting or rejecting them. I'd like to think that the older hands would give bookies the 'on yer bike' treatment, but I imagine that when they were apprenticed, especially to gambling yards (which has been mentioned on here previously), then yes, there'd be some hokey going on.
 
I would have doubts about it-not doubting it was said but if it was as easy as that we would see a lot of high profile cases.
 
It doesn't have to be often.

That bookie acquanitance got me a couple of times before I wised up. I'd see his pitch (he didn't own it, he just worked it) was offering a slightly better price and sidle up asking for a tenner at the price. He'd say to the main man, "I'll take this one myself" and stick the tenner in his pocket. Needless to say the horse was never sighted. I think it happened twice. The first time I naively thought he was doing me a favour since we knew each toher from his shop, and the second time was enough to open my eyes. I never bet with him again but did speak to him in very general terms at the next meeting. He mentioned he'd be taking on an odds-on shot later in the day. when I asked him why he replied, "Oh, we can get anything beat here. [X] (another racecourse) is different."
 
I think they would have stopped two out of the four, if it was that easy for them to do it. I'm sure the gamble by the stable/cartel would have allowed for one loser.
 
The fact of the matter is the horse still has to go out and win, which isn't guaranteed and if Curley and his associates are willing pile the money on and try and get one over on the bookies I for one am not bothered at all.

The bookies fix SP's and betting terms have been getting progressively worse for the punter for years so I have no issue with them getting done over once in a while. In a mature market like horse racing you would expect that prices and terms would become increasingly competitive but the SP system does not reflect this. It's basically price fixing which firms like the airlines can't get away with.

Tete a tete...An eye for an eye an all that...
 
Desert Orchid said:
"Oh, we can get anything beat here. [X] (another racecourse) is different."
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The mind boggles Mo. I cannot believe you take that as a sign that this bookmaker was fixing races. Blanking out the name of the racecourse to protect its identity in this scandal is a sweet touch though......:D
 
As the rules get tighter these coups become more difficult.

The main formula nowadays, used by Martin and Roche as well as Curley, is to get a horse with useful form abroad that has been going downhill, presumably becasue of some infirmity. Let it run badly a few times, preferably with an inexperienced rider on board, then sort out what has been wrong if you can and bring it back after a long lay-off in the worst race you can find over its best trip and going.

Two of the horses yesterday had group form in Germany. I doubt whether any bookmakers took proper money on them at big prices.

The one for which I can find no explanation is the Towcester winner, especially since it ran abysmally only two weeks ago over the same course and distance.
 
Oops - perhaps the old 'made a noise/gurgled' will be dropped off Column B's List of Excuses after David Casey's 14-day ban at Killarney, based on not riding the horse to obtain blah, blah. Trainer Tony Mullins fined £2K and the horse barred for 42 days. The vet's inspection found nothing wrong with the horse, so that excuse might be chucked out in favour of 'felt it lose its action or take a mis-step'.
 
rorydelargy said:
The mind boggles Mo. I cannot believe you take that as a sign that this bookmaker was fixing races. Blanking out the name of the racecourse to protect its identity in this scandal is a sweet touch though......:D
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I don't believe it was the bookie acting in isolation. I believe it was a question of the bookmakers' intelligence being clearer as far as that course was concerned and getting word through to them that a certain horse is being reserved for another day.

Remember the famous Willie Carson case?
 
Desert Orchid said:
I don't believe it was the bookie acting in isolation. I believe it was a question of the bookmakers' intelligence being clearer as far as that course was concerned and getting word through to them that a certain horse is being reserved for another day.

Remember the famous Willie Carson case?
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That's an entirely different claim to your original one, where you suggested that bookmakers themselves were fixing the results.

Which Willie Carson case btw?
 
Does anyone else find it amusingly ironic that Curley does so much for charity yet couldn't lie straight in bed himself?
 
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