First was jockey Frankie Dettori’s return to the track after injury. He is still a favourite of the betting shop customers and he was victorious on his first two rides back in the saddle at Lingfield. Eco Warrior (8/1) won the opening maiden stakes race (1.00) and Gone With The Wind (7/4f) took the maiden stakes contest an hour later, giving Dettori-backers a near 24/1 double.
But, elsewhere, someone clearly had an expensive Christmas that they needed to pay for with reports of a betting coup involving four horses across the cards at Lingfield, Catterick and Kempton Park. Maybe Dettori’s return helped divert attention from their plans?
Many of the horses involved have links to the fearless gambler Barney Curley. Several share a similar profile of a long absence from the track and more zeros next to their name than an England batsman.
Eye Of The Tiger (1.30 Lingfield) WON 1/1f
Seven Summits (1.40 Catterick) WON 9/4f
Indus Valley (4.25 Kempton) WON 4/6f
Low Key (6.25 Kempton) WON 4/7f
All the horses were cut sharply by the bookmakers. Eye Of The Tiger was available at 10/1 last night, 4/1 this morning and returned the even money favourite.
Indus Valley had not run for 700 days and had a form profile of 830000 and yet at one point in the afternoon was 2/5 favourite for the first race at Kempton (4.25), having been 20/1, 8/1, and 2/1.
A similar coup occurred in May 2010 when three horses linked to Curley won at Brighton, Wolverhampton and Towcester – Agapanthus, Savaranola and Jeu De Roseau. A fourth horse – Sommersturm – was beaten but the odds of the other three (11/2, 4/1 and 25/1) was enough to earn winnings of almost GB£ 4 million.
