Over the years, I’ve been very fortunate to meet a host of top sports stars, and befriend quite a few of them. Regular ingesters of content from this keyboard will know the list well. Or some of them. Colm O’Rourke, Graham Geragthy, Noel Meade, Jim Bolger, Trevor Brennan, Sean O’Brien, Peter O’Mahony and Michael Carruth. That’s literally just off the top of my head.
For any such amalgam, though, there’s nearly always a commensurate one of people you’ve never met but would love to. Or might never get the chance to.
In my case, that compilation would include Alex Ferguson, Aidan O’Brien, Paul McGinley, Rory McIlroy, Paul O’Connell, Roy Keane and John McEnroe – the tennis player, not the Oldcastle legend, he needs no introduction!
Unfortunately, one man who is not listed above who one would have absolutely loved to make the acquaintance of is the late Barney Curley, horse owner, trainer, fearless gambler and all round lovable rogue.
Long before Paul O’Connell became associated with the phrase, Curley was putting the fear of God into people – mostly unfortunate bookmakers!
That said, they’re not that badly off, I’ve yet to see one dependent on a bicycle. When characters like Barney went (there’s few if any able to do it now) after a ‘Touch’ (big gamble) everybody knew about it.
The masses undoubtedly knew about his most famous coup engineered with a horse called Yellow Sam in none other than Bellewstown in 1975.
Loosely, my understanding of the operation is as follows, the great man contacted people the length and breadth of the country and arranged that they all phoned in bets at set times so as to jam up phone lines, thereby impinging efforts to relay what was presumably a contracting price in betting shops to the on-course layers. A mammoth operation to undertake, but genius in its execution. Barney reckoned he bagged £300,000 from it, which, though an enormous ball of money even now, must have been gargantuan back then.
Now, like the old gunslingers in a Western, while that was, realistically, his last big ‘score’, he did pull off jobs here and there along the way but he also did an awful lot of good away from racing through the charity he founded – Direct Aid For Africa (DAFA).
Thus, it was both poignantly fitting – and let’s be honest, great marketing, that those behind Bellewstown Races honoured the moustached maverick following his passing in May 2021. The centrepiece of their tribute being a race named in his honour. For which Frankie Dettori came over and, wouldn’t you know, won it, aboard a horse trained by Johnny Murtagh.
In one way, a friendship between Frankie and Barney might seem a little odd, but, viewed through a different lens, they were both colourful characters – to put it very mildly – and never shy when there’s a camera about.
However, I cannot help but think Barney would be turning in his grave given some of the Italian’s antics in recent times. Having announced in the ‘closed season’ for Flat racing that 2023 would be his last lap of the track, what started as a farewell tour has now descended into a farcical circus.
Yes, AP McCoy was afforded a similarly elongated swansong upon his departure – and deservedly so – but, whereas the Toomebridge legend accepted all the honours and platitudes bestowed upon him with typical grace and humility, Frankie has milked his canter off into the sunset like a high yielding cow.
Look, each sport has to compete for their market share, especially as successes and mass coverage thereof become more widespread. See rugby and ladies football and camogie and athletics vis a vis the rise in participation numbers for reference. Hopefully the ‘male GAA’ will cop on to the sheer folly of the split season before the player drain becomes too drastic. All over the country clubs players must now wait till next February or March for a return to activity. Ridiculous.
However, competing for market share is one thing, but I wholeheartedly agree with Pat Healy and the rest of the Listowel Races Committee in their refusal to accede to the diminutive Italian’s financial demands pursuant to him riding at their Harvest Festival. The event doesn’t need him in order to be a success and no one individual is bigger than an entire sport.
Frankie can go to Hollywood or Timbuktu but Listowel will be fine without him!
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