He has been out working a horse on the gallops. "Not a sinner about," he says, with wry satisfaction. "Sunday morning, they're all in bed." But the wind has exacerbated his conjunctivitis. There's something wrong with his ears, too – they're stuffed with cotton wool. Barney Curley moves slowly, nowadays, can't walk very far. Last year he lay in hospital for three months. "Lucky to get out. It was evens each of two, live or die." He's 70. And three weeks ago he pulled off one of the most extravagant gambles in the long history of the Turf.
"Nobody will ever win as much on horse racing, this century," he pronounces, in his measured Co Fermanagh tones. Quite how much, he will not say, though industry estimates of £1m sound hopelessly conservative.
One of the men who helped manage a project of rococo complexity, joining us in Curley's sitting room, suggests that it was first discussed before some of the horses involved were even born. Come the day – a humdrum Monday 10 May – four were linked in a series of trebles and accumulators. Three are trained by Curley himself, in probably the smallest stable in Newmarket. The fourth he had sold in 2008 to Chris Grant, a trainer on Teesside.
Agapanthus won at Brighton; then Savaronola did the business at Wolverhampton. But Curley's third runner, Sommersturm, was beaten later on the card. That left Grant's horse, Jeu De Roseau, who made his first appearance in 742 days to win at Towcester's evening meeting.
Had Sommersturm completed the job, the bookmakers would all have reached their various maximum payouts – an aggregate Curley reckons at over £20m. But it has been hard enough getting them to pay out, as it is. "I'm pleased the other one didn't win," he insists. "If these fellows can't pay three, what chance would we have with four?"
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