RaceBase

Extraordinary betting coup landed at Kilbeggan

BY JOHNNY WARD 11:07AM 23 JUN 2010

AN AMAZING gamble was pulled off when the Conor O’Dwyer-trained D Four Dave won at Kilbeggan on Monday evening, it has emerged.

The horse is part-owned by Douglas Taylor, managing director of MCR Group, a Dublin-based recruitment company, and the Racing Post can reveal that MCR paid 200 people to each place €200 they weregiven on D Four Dave, with detailed instructions issued to each in a letter (below).

The coup would have won its organisers at least €200,000, only for it to become, in part, lost in translation.

The six-year-old was an easy winner of the Hurley Family Kilbeggan Handicap Hurdle, sent off at 5-1 after having been available at 14-1 in the morning.


The vast majority of the 200 individuals employed to place the bets were foreign nationals, as the organisers sought to minimise the risk of information about the gamble being leaked.

Each was given a watch, with the alarm set to go off at exactly 6.55pm – five minutes before D Four Dave was due to run.

The ‘runners’ were then driven to separate betting shops in the Dublin and Kildare area and were given a note with instructions, a copy of which has been obtained by the Irish Racing Post.

However, the plan went awry when some of the runners – who were paid €30 for what amounted to around three hours’ work – did not carry out the instructions with the military precision intended.

It is understood that some of them could not read the note they had been given, while others tried to place the bet after the race had concluded and the horse had sauntered home by seven lengths.

If each of the 200 runners had placed the €200 on the horse at the price shown, they would have won at least €200,000 – but it is understood that the actual figure is considerably less.

Sharon Byrne, chair of the Irish Bookmakers’ Association, described the gamble as “unbelievable”.

She added: “The whole of Dublin and most of Kildare were hit. Some of those recruited had really bad English and couldn’t even read what they were given.

“The staff could see two watches on most of their wrists and were aware that something unusual was happening.

“Some of the bookmakers’ staff got to keep the note that the runners had been given, although some of those recruited got a little aggressive and insisted they get the note back.

“By hitting us all at the same time, most phone lines are clogged up. It’d be a weak bookie who wouldn’t take €200 at a live price from the course and I was on to all the various bookmakers this morning and they were all done.

“It reminds me of the Barney Curley coup all those years ago,” she added.

On that occasion, in 1975, Curley orchestrated a huge gamble on Yellow Sam at Bellewstown, after getting a friend to occupy the one telephone line at the course.

O’Dwyer admitted the owners had backed D Four Dave. “We had a few quid on all right, as we thought it was a bad race,” he said. However, the stewards at the track inquired into improved form, as the horse had been beaten more than 40 lengths when he ran at Kilbeggan this month.

O’Dwyer told them he felt the race was poor and he had expected the horse to be competitive. He added D Four Dave was ridden more positively and had benefited from the step up in trip. The stewards noted the explanations.

The Racing Post understands that those who organised the coup had hoped the horse’s victory would have resulted in far bigger winnings. The horse’s price had contracted from 14-1 in the morning in to about 7-1 by the time on-course bookmakers offered odds on Monday evening.

Even so, bookmakers were feeling the pain on Monday. Paddy Power, spokesman for the firm of the same name, said: “We lost a few quid on it all right. It was a good old plunge. We shortened it from 12s into 10s during the morning but it was freely available at 10s all day long.

“It won’t go down in the history books or anything like that, but it was a bad result for us and we probably lost about €40,000 or €50,000.”

At Boylesports, spokesman Leon Blanche said: “It was a really well-executed gamble and we lost a five-figure sum. It was a really good punt landed.”

» Those remarkable instructions in full

“Dear Employee, enclosed you will find:

A completed betting slip for the bettingshop that you have been sent to. €200 in cash for which you need to place the bet.

You should also have a watch with an alarm set to go off at 6.55pm. Your job is to place the bet exactly when the alarm goes off at 6.55pm. You need to be at the counter before the alarm goes off to be in position to hand over the betting slip and say to the person at the counter “I WILL TAKE THE PRICE”.

When the person hands you back the betting slip you will pay over the €200. You then have to place the betting slip back into your envelope and return the slip immediately to your supervisor/driver along with the watch when he comes to pick you up. You can then return with your driver/supervisor to MCR office to get paid.

Thank you.”