Heros or Villains?

It was a carefully planned coup, designed to be executed whilst racing’s eyes were on Sunday’s Dublin Racing Festival.

Three seemingly unrelated horses were linked in trebles placed with all the major online bookmakers, albeit with relatively small stakes.

A £1 treble placed as the market opened on Saturday evening on Fire Away (1.25 at Musselburgh, 22/1), Blowing Dixie (2.35 at Southwell, 9/1) and Gallahers Cross (4.25 at Musselburgh, 33/1) would have returned a cool £7820 including the £1 stake .

Bookmakers were reported in sensible racing news outlets as saying their liabilities were between £2m and £3m, although The Sun hysterically suggested £10m. If it were £2.5m then only £320 or so needed to be wagered in that initial volley.

In the event a little scratching beneath the surface revealed that all three horses were not only stabled within reasonable proximity to each other in the Scottish Borders, but each also had some form if you dug back far enough; indeed backers of course-and-distance winners might have picked out Blowing Dixie's history of four C&D wins at Southwell; or that Fire Away won his bumper; or, Gallahers Cross was a £260,000 Highflyer Bloodstock purchase in 2017. But as Graham Rodway commented in the Racing Post: “…all three were essentially no-hopers judged on their most recent efforts…”

Those of us still in our pyjamas on Sunday afternoon watching ITV Racing by the fire, with dogs demanding to be let out, could only get the middle Southwell leg by wincing into iPhone betting apps as Blowing Dixie duly obliged. Likewise the unsuccessful Gallahers Cross leg.Gallahers CrossExciting as Leopardstown was, we like a conspiracy, don’t we?

Or do we? – Dylan Hill, again in the Racing Post, maintains that this wasn’t ordinary punters getting one over the bookies, this was executed by people with information not available to the public.

Not only should those who had backed other horses in the respective races in good faith be miffed, but there would be a direct cost to racing in the form of the levy, designed to increase prize money and make racehorse ownership less financially painful.

Then again Twitter was ablaze: they loved the Robin Hood aspect as well as the seemingly studied poker faces of the protagonists. That Laura Morgan, trainer of Fire Away, hadn’t even meant to buy him when she did – from Daragh Bourke trainer of Gallahers Cross, another of the runners in the, erm, £2.5m coup. They loved the coincidence.

Some said that given the shocking level of prize money, it wasn't a surprise that owners were having a pop at the bookies to make ends meet.

In all our hearts we love rogues and those who take on the system and win; the wrongs and rights of this one notwithstanding, below, we have taken a look at two of our favourite betting coups – including one Barney Curley triumph and a YouTube link to a very young Pierce Brosnan in a Thames TV film about the great Cartmel Racecourse Gay Future gamble.

We'll wager it's the best movie you'll watch tonight if you do.