Yellow Sam betting coup

It happened at Bellewstown racecourse on 26 June 1975, and was orchestrated by Bernard Joseph (Barney) Curley, an Irish professional gambler, philanthropist behind a charity for impoverished children in Zambia[1] (which he set up after his son's death in 1995),[2] former trainer,[3] former Jesuit seminarian,[1] failed pub owner,[1] former pop group manager,[1] and entrepreneur.

By taking advantage of an under-handicapped horse and the lack of easy communications between the Bellewstown racing course and off-course bookmakers, Curley made a profit of over IR£300,000 (>€1.7m adjusted for inflation) – one of the largest betting coups in Irish history.

Curley instructed the horse's trainer, Liam Brennan, to train Yellow Sam specifically for the somewhat obscure annual National Hunt race at Bellewstown, featuring mostly amateur jockeys.

On the day of the race, Yellow Sam's starting price was 20–1, but if large sums of money were being placed on the horse, that figure would drop quickly, drastically reducing the coup's potential take.

His act was convincing, as the queue behind him waiting to use the telephone sympathetically allowed him to continue talking for half an hour, while off-course bookies desperately trying to lay off their liabilities struggled in vain to contact their counterparts on the course.

Bellewstown Race Course itself played up the coup in later years, and in 2005 ran the "Seamus Murphy Yellow Sam 30th Anniversary Hurdle", inviting Barney Curley and Liam Brennan to observe the celebrations.