Barney Curly

In recent times one Curley modus operandi was to find horses which once upon a time had shown very decent form in countries not taken seriously by British punters, such as Germany or Italy, but whose form had deteriorated. He was buying them cheap and gave them all the time they needed to be ready for a fto win in the worst races he could find in England. Natually they were gambled but it was perfectly fair, even if it didn't stop people squealing cheat.

It did help he ran them down the field for a few runs before they won, mostly extremely unfit.

Never saw a Curley horse do more than a lap of the paddock.
 
That is a term that trainers use to describe the signs they see that show a horse is ready.



Is a phrase I have not heard before and sounds like a (humorous) euphemism for a non trier. When he had a winner there was no clue from previous form. The horse was not reaching a 'natural peak' plain for all to see. It generally took half the track to pull up after the finish line when it won (One that spencer won twice on in Galway in the same week springs to mind) after a run of duck eggs. For every punter who was on there where twenty that where n't. He drove people away from racing and fixed the 'bent' image in peoples minds .What ever else he did/does he was no friend of racing.
You got me beat with the horse that won twice in the one week at Galway. I certainly don't remeber him having a massive touch on any such animal.

The term "I'll let the horse tell me when he is ready" does not mean what you say.

It means I am not going to push him I'll let him come to his peak in his own time.

That is exactly how Barney Curley trained them and he had the patience to do it.

He went though a lot of horses that never proved good enough to win and he lost more than a few times when he thought one could.

Of course when you have a gamble and it loses no one cares.....nothing is said but shoud you win you're either a crook or clever depending on who'
s doing the talking..

No doubt Barney has run more than a few less fit than they could have been but do all trainers not do that when they have a target in mind

Paul Nichols did it for years with Kauto Star and when he lost in the Betfair Chase and cost punters millions that's ok because he's Paul Nicholls and Kauto Star was a superstar,

I fail to see the difference if it's Barney Curley leaving something to work on, Paul Nichols Jonjo, Nicky Henderson or whoever.........they are out to win the race with the big dosh and that comes before any punters welfare.

Look at Sir Mark Prescott is he not the biggest crook on the planet? or is he simply manuilating the fact there's no rule to say you can't run a 2 miler over 5 furlongs to make sure it doesn't win?

Personally I have no problem with Barney Curley or Sir Mark because I love it when someone lands a touch within the rules............to say it's bad for racing is absolute garbage....Thousand of owners have been attracted to racing with dreams of landing a touch.

Martin Pipe had them queing up in their hundreds to put a horse with him when he and Chester Barnes landed gamble after gamble and he could have filled his yard twice over because they all wanted in on the act which led to Pipe becoming champion trainer.....that's how bad landing touches is for racing and Martin Pipe was no angel....far from it.
 
Paul Nicholls would be horrified by your post Fist. His interpretation of "in need of a run" would be very different to Curly's.
 
Take a walk into the betting shops and the pubs, talk to the "mug punters" as they are described by some on here, and ask them what they think of Barney Curley, they love him!
 
That's probably because most mug-punters think Curley is having one over on the bookies, and tend not to realise that it is in fact they who are getting it in the hoop, whenever he plots one up.

He was largely an irrelevance for me as he had very few Jumpers, so I'm a bit ambivalent about him.....but I'm largely aligned with Sheik's viewpoint, and Aragorn's statement re Paul Nicholls also rings true.
 
Hard to think of another trainer who would be furtheer way from Curleys modus operandi than Martin Pipe. He landed gambles because he got his horses super fit and they where always trying. Pipe and McCoy where the real Punters Pal.
 
Would that be the same Martin Pipe that was suspected of blood doping? Or is the man who was disliked by many racing insiders who claimed he was a cheat, or the man who ran loads of young novices on rock hard ground who after winning a couple of races disappeared into oblivion, or is it the one who was the subject of a Roger Cook investigation?

Your hero was fined under the non triers rule and questioned more times by the stewards that you've had hot dinners........always trying my backside.
 
Would that be the same Martin Pipe that was suspected of blood doping? Or is the man who was disliked by many racing insiders who claimed he was a cheat, or the man who ran loads of young novices on rock hard ground who after winning a couple of races disappeared into oblivion, or is it the one who was the subject of a Roger Cook investigation?

Your hero was fined under the non triers rule and questioned more times by the stewards that you've had hot dinners........always trying my backside.

Not having this shite at all!!
1) Blood doping proved was it?
2) Disliked by insiders? You mean people he made look like fools and who were jealous?
3) Cook report?? Did you see that crap or not? What was actually proved?

Im afraid you are talking out of your backside Tanlic
 
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The future of racing is grim when the likes of Curley are help up as hero's :(

can't see as he's held up as any kind of hero tbh..but he's no worse than 95% of trainers..just better at "cheating" than most

if you don't like what he did..then blame the game..it openly encourages it
 
Not having this shite at all!!
1) Blood doping proved was it?
2) Disliked by insiders? You mean people he made look like fools and who were jealous?
3) Cook report?? Did you see that crap or not? What was actually proved?

Im afraid you are talking out of your backside Tanlic[/QUOTE}

Yeah I read the same article you did you naive fool.
 
So no facts then, just the expected insult. Well done Tanlic, keep up the good work!!
 
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Anybody see Jonjo on Ch 4 yesterday say that Sunnhillboy was only 80/85% fit?
Does that not amount to training on the course, or does it not matter if you belong to the right lodge?
 
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Anybody see Jonjo on Ch 4 yesterday say that Sunnhillboy was only 80/85% fit?
Does that not amount to training on the course, or does it not matter if you belong to the right lodge?

;)

for the moneysworth of horses that he gets..per £ of horse flesh..he must be the worst trainer around judged by number of wins

he is no different to BC..just gets better horses
 
Article by Greg Wood in The Guardian

Two of racing's most durable characters have confirmed their retirement from long-standing roles over the last seven days, with varying degrees of dignity.

John McCririck's decision to sue Channel 4 and its production company for "ageism" when it decided not to renew his freelance contract guarantees that he will never work for the company again. It also prompted several excruciating media outings, full of McCririck's normal, boorish sexism, which attempted to push his side of the argument but left him wide open to accusations of hypocrisy.

It is a good deal more difficult to accuse others of prejudice when it has been one of one's own defining characteristics for the last 30 years. But it is also a sad way to conclude what has, at times, been a garlanded career. In his time as a reporter on the Sporting Life, McCririck had a keen nose for a story and a determination to get it into print. His grotesque public image had long since taken over but there was once a decent journalist somewhere underneath the bluster and bling.

Barney Curley went more quietly. His Newmarket stable is now almost empty, he will not renew his licence when it expires at the end of this month and he will depart instead for Zambia, where Direct Aid for Africa, the charity which Curley founded in the mid-1990s, works with children orphaned by Aids.

Curley, like McCririck, has been a colourful and controversial figure in racing for many decades.

Again like McCririck, Curley has tried at times to style himself as a tribune of the punters but for every backer who admires his extraordinary gambles over the years there is another who will vent frustration that any race with a Curley-trained runner was a "no-bet" race since it was impossible to be sure whether the trainer fancied it and, therefore, whether everything else was probably running for second place.

A personal view would be that both men were products of a different time and, as a result, hard to judge by modern standards. McCririck rose to fame when there were just a few television channels and a little eccentricity and colour in a monochrome world was enough to get one noticed.

Curley, meanwhile, operated to maximum effect at a time when racing in general, and National Hunt racing in particular, was a different world. Races were often won not by the best horse but the least unfit and the rules were so loose that they all but begged to be exploited.

Jockeys, for instance, did not need to be declared overnight and could be switched almost at will. On one occasion, when nothing illegal took place, Curley legged a 7lb-claimer into the saddle and watched as the horse headed off to the start – then went to the betting ring and got his money down, whereupon Declan Murphy, his top stable jockey, slipped under the running rail, took over in the saddle and the pair proceeded to win as they pleased.

Curley's final coup, worth £4m, involved four horses, three of which were winners. Had the other one gone in, it would have been worth an estimated £20m and thus the biggest win in turf history. But it took nearly two years to squeeze the money out of some offshore bookmakers, another sign of the changing times.

The famous Yellow Sam coup, which relied on an accomplice occupying the only phone line into Bellewstown to stop the bookies sending money to the track, is just one exploit that would not be possible now.

Modern racing would not offer the same opportunities for a younger version of Curley starting out in the game. The form, for sure, is a little more reliable but a little of the colour has been bleached away too.
 
So no facts then, just the expected insult. Well done Tanlic, keep up the good work!!
Sorry about the fool bit Harry a bit harsh but you are being foolish.

All the events that took place at that time happened for a good reason. I was heavily involved in racing at the time and knew almost every top jockey in the North and was very close friend to one in particular. The jockeys network is like no other nothing gets past them and when North meets South anything that's going on come out in the open. The BHA get news of these things but can't do a thing without evidence as it is just here say but 99 times out of 100 if its coming from the jockeys network there a lot of truth in it. I can tell you hand on heart he was not a popular man among horse lovers and the amount of horses he was going through was the talk of the town long before Roger Cook got involved. Eventually the BHA raided the Pipe yard looking for evidence but considering the time it took them to be in a position to do so they were never going to find anything. IF!!!! Pipe was blood doping horse the only way it can be detected is by finding the punture marks on a horse and the heal up very quickly. I'm pretty sure if there was anything going on they were well aware they could be raided at anytime and they therefor could have taken measures long before to make sure nothing was found.

There is no evidence but there's no smoke without fire and where the smoke was coming from I tend to be a bit suspicious.

I did have some dealing with Messrs Pipe and on one occasion called him to congratulate him on beating one of our horses......After telling me how much the won he proceeded to ask me to move our horse out of our trainers yard and send it to him. Trainers simply don't do that sort of thing to each other

That is on my kids life and to me he's a **** of a man capable of anything
 
A good post DG but 4 million 20 million?............Barney Curley would be so lucky. He won 300k after fighting with them to for ages to get paid out. Even with inflation would it be worth as much?

Not that is matters as he probably wouldn't get paid out at all nowadays Where there is evidence of Price, Race, Match or Event rigging, we reserve the right to make bets void or withhold payment of returns pending the outcome of any subsequent investigation.

Backing the same horse in different shops belonging to the same company is attempted price rigging. At one time Hill or Mecca had a rule saying they would limit payouts on any horse who was subject to this to 6/1 but now they just wouldn't pay you at all.

Some might make you an offer but that's as good as it gets
 
Sorry about the fool bit Harry a bit harsh but you are being foolish.

All the events that took place at that time happened for a good reason. I was heavily involved in racing at the time and knew almost every top jockey in the North and was very close friend to one in particular. The jockeys network is like no other nothing gets past them and when North meets South anything that's going on come out in the open. The BHA get news of these things but can't do a thing without evidence as it is just here say but 99 times out of 100 if its coming from the jockeys network there a lot of truth in it. I can tell you hand on heart he was not a popular man among horse lovers and the amount of horses he was going through was the talk of the town long before Roger Cook got involved. Eventually the BHA raided the Pipe yard looking for evidence but considering the time it took them to be in a position to do so they were never going to find anything. IF!!!! Pipe was blood doping horse the only way it can be detected is by finding the punture marks on a horse and the heal up very quickly. I'm pretty sure if there was anything going on they were well aware they could be raided at anytime and they therefor could have taken measures long before to make sure nothing was found.

There is no evidence but there's no smoke without fire and where the smoke was coming from I tend to be a bit suspicious.

I did have some dealing with Messrs Pipe and on one occasion called him to congratulate him on beating one of our horses......After telling me how much the won he proceeded to ask me to move our horse out of our trainers yard and send it to him. Trainers simply don't do that sort of thing to each other

That is on my kids life and to me he's a **** of a man capable of anything

Tanlic, read your post back to yourself and see what it sounds like.
You really have gone downhill recently.
 
Anybody see Jonjo on Ch 4 yesterday say that Sunnhillboy was only 80/85% fit?
Does that not amount to training on the course, or does it not matter if you belong to the right lodge?
Sure he did the same thing with Don't Push it when preparing him for his second crack. He never saw a fence between Nationals and he even had the cheek to send the horse to the Festival for a look at the people....he'll do exactly the same again with this horse knowing that if he even ran well in a chase he would give the handicapper the opportunity to increase his current 152 rating. Even if he wanted to win something beforehand over fences he probably have real tough time off 10lbs higher than he won the Kim Muir and finished 2nd in the National off.

You can't blame Jonjo...........the handicapper is off his trolly. He gets beat by a horse rated 15lbs ahead of him getting 15lbs and he jumps him up 10lbs......How the hell did he work that one out?

No wonder trainers use every grey area they can to try and overcome what surely is totally unfair. The handicap has set him a near impossible task to ever win a race again.
 
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