The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
The Sure Thing

The Sure Thing

The Greatest Coup in Horse Racing History

Summary

_____
The bookies always win.

But one man has been proving them wrong for four decades.


In the summer of 1975 Barney Curley, a fearless and renowned gambler, masterminded one of the most spectacular gambles of all time with a racehorse called Yellow Sam. With a meticulous, entirely legal plan involving dozens of people, perfectly timed phone calls, sealed orders and months of preparation, Curley and Yellow Sam beat the bookmakers and cost them millions.

They said that it could never happen again.

But in May 2010, thirty-five years after his first coup, Curley staged the ultimate multi-million-pound-winning sequel.

The Sure Thing tells the complete story of how he managed to organise the biggest gamble in racing history - and how he then followed up with yet another audacious scheme in January 2014.

Reviews

  • Nick Townsend tells the story with panache, helped by a close acquaintance with the Irish mastermind of the scheme, Barney Curley, a name which bookmakers have had reason to curse on several occasions… It gets properly into its stride when it focuses on the coup, which in its innovative daring calls to mind The Italian Job.
    Independent on Sunday

About the author

Nick Townsend

Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more