Barney Curley is one of Ireland's most well known figures in racing that always has an opinion on the sport but came into the sport through owning horses and also pulling off one of the biggest gambles in the history of betting.
In 1975 at Bellewstown he pulled off one of the industries biggest betting coups that to this day has not been seen again, with a lot of preparation and huge bit of intel that made him land an unforgettable amount of money.
In the Mount Hanover Amateur Riders’ Handicap Hurdle (2m5f), 3.30 Bellewstown, June 25, 1975 Curley was in some financial trouble and desperately needed his luck to change and fortunately for him it did with this gamble.
The 79 year old, back in 1975 spoke to leading jockey Liam Brennan, who once upon a time rode horses for the owner, and asked him for a horse that had a great chance in the coming weeks and Liam obliged and got back to Barney.
(Credit Racing Post) Barney Curley said: "Liam was an excellent judge and always made maximum use of the horses he had.
"He was a very good teacher. I learned a lot from him."
The choice was a struggle for the Irish jockey but gave Curley a name. He says: "After a couple of days Liam came back to me and said, 'You know, Barney, this horse Yellow Sam, I think he's improved a bit'."
Yellow Sam was a 20/1 shot in this race and looked to have little to no chance of landing the contest. However, Curley and his men lumped on at the starting price and placed this bet in around 300 betting shops across Ireland just before the start of the race.
The Bookmakers were unable to force the price down as they could not get through to the bookies on course and this was all because, back then the only public phone available was being occupied all the way up until the race by a person close to Curley's organisation with a fictional story about the health of a relative.
Yellow Sam went on to land the race and Curley earned a huge £306,000 that today would be worth a staggering £2 million.
The bookies had no option that to pay the full amount out and Curley is known as one of the biggest Gamblers in Ireland but also within the racing world.
His main focus now aswell as horse racing is his Charity Dafa, that he founded. This organisation helps people in Africa, more specifically the country Zambia.
For a man who has pulled off such an astonishing bet, he then asserted himself within the racing world and there is a video on At The Races that see's him giving his opinion on Luke Harvey and John McCririck about betting patterns.
Watch Below it is hilarious seeing two knowledgable pundits get dressed down for frankly no reason and they can not do anything about it being live on air.