The rules of racing stipulated that any horse had to be in a trainer's care for 28 days before it could race for him, and Collins duly entered Gay Future for a novice hurdle at Cartmel on August 26, bank holiday Monday, while in reality O'Grady was still getting the horse ready to race back in Ireland. In all instances, the idea was to hide the identity of the more capable one for as long as possible.Įdward O'Grady, the young, talented Irish trainer, had Gay Future in his yard in County Tipperary, while a substitute, purportedly Gay Future, was sent to the tiny yard of Troon permit-holder and stockbroker Tony Collins. The plan hatched by Tony Murphy – a construction magnate from County Cork he of the gold Rolls-Royce – involved two horses, two trainers and two jockeys. There were no doped horses or bribed jockeys it was just a straightforward trick to try to beat the bookmakers. A simple planĪ major part of the Gay Future case's romantic appeal down the years is that there was nothing sinister about the coup.
HOTTEST GAY TWITTER ACCOUNT MOVIE
It had all the elements of a movie and that's exactly what it became, starring a future James Bond. It involved a millionaire builder who drove a gold Rolls-Royce, a young trainer who would go on to be one of the best of his generation, a stockbroker, a switch of horses, a remote racecourse, a red telephone box and ultimately a court case. The August bank holiday Monday of 1974 has gone down in racing folklore, all because of a horse called Gay Future, a group of plotters dubbed by the newspapers of the day as the Cork Mafia and a cunning betting coup that very nearly worked.
This week: Gay Future and a legendary plot
Recalling some of the greatest gambles in racing history.