Caught by the short & Curley's (again)

Yesterday, a significant betting “coup” was pulled-off that was almost certainly engineered by Barney Curley. There has been a lot of “hero” worship of the man considered the scourge of the bookies but, in my opinion, this hero-worship is misdirected.

Here is what I wrote on 16^th September 2010.

At Yarmouth, Barney Curley sends a couple. The one that interests me is his progressive hurdler ZABEEL PALACE, currently 11/1. If he’s fit to race, then he’ll win this doing handsprings (he’s reated OR129 over hurdles and I usually discount by 40lbs for a flat rating, ie OR89 which makes his rating today of OR66 a handicap snip). However, if he’s spent the summer eating grass in a field then he’ll no doubt come last. Paddock inspection required!

Here is what I wrote on 20^th July 2010

Barney Curley is a name that puts fear into bookmakers, and he struck last Friday evening in the last race on the card at Newmarket by winning with his only runner of the day - AVISO.

Think about this; Aviso, which won off OR67 at 25/1, had won the Group 2 German 2000 Guineas as a 3yo, with the Mark Johnston trained Champery in 3rd. Champery then won a Listed race in France NTO and ended up with a rating of OR107 before he died as a 4yo. How does an OR110+ Group 2 winner at a mile end up at OR67 in a Class 5 handicap at Newmarket over the same trip? Well, it doesn’t happen by it running well. It has to run, and run poorly for its handicap to drop. Read this note on its running; “Took keen hold, soon tracking leaders, lost place over 1f out, eased.” That was Aviso on 29-Mar 2009 when trained by Curley, and it came 17th of 19 in a class 4 handicap. Aviso has now won 2 of his last 3 races at odds of 6/1 and 25/1.

 The methods of Barney Curley are fairly simple.

1.       Buy a horse with proven ability (yesterday’s winner Eye Of The Tiger, had won a Group 2 over 12-furlongs in Germany as a 5yo in 2010).

2.       Leave horse standing in a field for a long time not being trained (Eye Of The Tiger did not run from May 2010 until April 2012 – nearly 2 years off the track – when it ran appallingly badly).

3.       Force handicapper to re-assess rating by sending horse to race when unfit and watch it be easily beaten. (from May 2012 to September 2012, horse dropped from OR102 to OR56 having run last (or 2^nd-last) in 5 consecutive races).

4.       When rating has dropped enough, train horse to race-fitness and send out to win.

 

The unfortunate thing about this is that, on the face of it, no rules of racing have been broken – and that is an appalling oversight by the BHA. It is one thing for a trainer to send a race-fit horse to contest a race over an unsuitable trip or on unsuitable ground as that can be construed a fact-finding mission. It is quite another to send a totally unfit horse to the races whereupon it is soundly beaten.

Consider the Rules of Racing:

PART 3 - GENERAL DUTIES OF TRAINERS - (C)21 to (C)49

Clause 45. Duty to secure the best possible placing;
I think this should be amended to include a sub-clause which state a horse should be fit enough to race to its merit. If a horse is found unfit to race (which has resulted in an exceptionally poor performance) then the stewards may order that (a) the horse is to be banned for life, or (b) the official rating is to remain unchanged.

The adverse publicity for this coup by Barney Curley means that (for the general public) the image of horseracing being “bent”, “fixed” or some other derogatory term, is reinforced.  Only last Friday, I was talking to some friends over dinner and discussed this blog: “Isn’t all horseracing fixed?” came the reply. No, it’s not (I replied), but sometimes I feel like I’m ploughing a lone furrow in giving it my support.