Gay Future gamble

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. 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. It had all the elements of a movie and that's exactly what it became, starring a future James Bond.

The Big Read: 'It was for more than the craic. It was for the money' - 50 years on, the Gay Future gambling coup is no less extraordinary

A simple plan

The Gang of three

At the heart of the Gay Future affair stood three men whose lives would become forever intertwined by a single audacious afternoon at a remote Cumbrian racecourse.

Tony Murphy was the undisputed mastermind, a self-made millionaire construction magnate from County Cork whose flamboyant lifestyle was the stuff of legend. He drove a gold Rolls-Royce through the streets of Cork, a rolling advertisement for his success and his appetite for the grand gesture. Murphy was a man who thought big and lived bigger, and in racing circles he was known as someone who loved a gamble almost as much as he loved winning. He had the vision, the connections, and the sheer brass neck required to conceive of a betting coup on this scale. Murphy assembled what the newspapers would gleefully dub the "Cork Mafia" – a syndicate that included friends, business associates, and even a Garda superintendent. For Murphy, the Gay Future scheme was the ultimate expression of his philosophy: if you're going to do something, do it properly, and do it with style.

Edward O'Grady was just 25 years old in 1974, a young man at the very beginning of what would become a stellar training career. Fresh out of Blackrock College and veterinary school, O'Grady had the education, the breeding, and the natural talent for horses that marked him as a rising star in Irish National Hunt racing. He was intelligent, articulate, and passionate about the sport, with an eye for a good horse that would later see him dominate at Cheltenham. But in 1974, he was still establishing himself, still building his reputation, still hungry to prove what he could do. When Murphy approached him with the plan, O'Grady had Gay Future in his yard in County Tipperary, preparing the horse properly while a substitute went to England. O'Grady's role was crucial – he was the one who would ensure the real Gay Future was fit and ready to win when the moment came. What he couldn't have known was that this single race would nearly derail his career before it had truly begun.

Tony Collins was the third key player, though in many ways he was also the most unfortunate. An Old Harrovian stockbroker and permit-holder based in Troon, Scotland, Collins cut a very different figure from the brash Cork builder. He was establishment, old school, a man more comfortable in the genteel world of Scottish racing than in the rough-and-tumble of Irish betting coups. Collins agreed to be the nominal trainer of record for Gay Future in England, the man whose name would appear on the racecard at Cartmel. What he didn't fully grasp – what Murphy and the others fatally failed to explain to him – was the intricate web of doubles and trebles that formed the financial heart of the scheme. Collins was kept in the dark about crucial details, treated on a need-to-know basis by men who perhaps didn't fully trust him with the whole picture. This decision would prove catastrophic. When a Sporting Life reporter rang Collins' yard on the evening of the race and asked about the two non-runners at Southwell and Plumpton, a stable worker innocently revealed that neither horse had left the premises. It was a simple, honest answer that exposed the entire plot. Collins, the gentleman amateur among professional schemers, became the unwitting weak link in the chain.

These three men – the flamboyant millionaire, the brilliant young horseman, and the unwitting fall guy – would find their fates bound together by a chestnut horse, a red telephone box, and one extraordinary afternoon in August 1974.

A major part of the Gay Future case's romantic appeal down the years is that there was nothing sinister about the coup. There were no doped horses or bribed jockeys; it was just a straightforward trick to try to beat the bookmakers.

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. In all instances, the idea was to hide the identity of the more capable one for as long as possible.

Edward 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 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.

Shortly before the big day, the real Gay Future arrived from Ireland. In a quiet country lane he was transferred to Collins' horsebox and taken to Cartmel, where he spent the night before the race. That part of the plan was in place.

The bets go on

There were other crucial elements. One was that Collins had to enter two other horses on the bank holiday Monday, at Southwell and Plumpton, even though neither horse was an intended runner. Their presence on the racecards was necessary only to camouflage bets on Gay Future.

On the morning of the race, members of the Cork Mafia – which included a Garda superintendent – flew to London and went round the betting shops, placing single bets on Gay Future and combining him in £10 and £15 doubles and trebles with the other two Collins entries. When those two horses were eventually declared non-runners, all the bets became singles on Gay Future at starting price. Those bets alone stood to net them more than £500,000 in today's money.

Race day

August 26, 1974 dawned bright over the Lake District, and by mid-morning Cartmel Racecourse was heaving with bank holiday crowds. Families spread picnic blankets on the grass, bookmakers bellowed odds from their pitches, and the air hummed with that particular electricity that comes when thousands of people gather with money in their pockets and hope in their hearts. It was the perfect day for racing – and the perfect day for a coup.

In the parade ring before the Ulverston Novices' Hurdle, something odd was happening. Gay Future was being led around by a man wearing a wig and sunglasses – an employee of O'Grady's in disguise, though few in the crowd would have known it. As the horse circled, the man worked soap flakes into Gay Future's coat with practiced hands, rubbing them deep into the chestnut hair. Within minutes, the horse was lathered in artificial sweat, foam flecking his flanks and neck. To the casual observer – and to the punters studying form in the ring – Gay Future looked like a bag of nerves, a horse already beaten before the race had begun. He appeared unsettled, anxious, hardly the picture of a confident runner. It was pure theater, designed to keep the odds long and the suspicions low.

Meanwhile, across the racecourse, a different kind of drama was unfolding at the single red telephone box that stood as Cartmel's only link to the outside world. In 1974, this remote Cumbrian track had no 'blower' system, no direct line to the bookmakers' offices in London and Manchester. There was just that one public phone box – and according to racing folklore, members of the Cork Mafia made sure it stayed occupied. Whether through a succession of lengthy calls or coins jammed into the mechanism, the phone was effectively useless for much of the afternoon. When bookmakers in London began to smell a rat – when the pattern of bets on Gay Future and the two Collins non-runners started to look suspiciously coordinated – they found themselves unable to get through to the course. The phone line was dead, or busy, or simply wouldn't connect. It was a masterstroke of low-tech sabotage.

In the betting shops of London, alarm bells were ringing. Ladbrokes, watching the money pile onto an unfancied novice hurdler at a nothing meeting in the middle of nowhere, knew something was badly wrong. They dispatched a motorcycle courier from their Manchester office, a leather-clad rider with a pannier full of cash, racing north through the Lake District with instructions to get money onto the course and shorten Gay Future's price before it was too late. The bike screamed through the winding roads, the rider pushing hard, but Cartmel was a long way from anywhere, and bank holiday traffic clogged the routes.

Back at the track, the race went off at 3:30pm. Gay Future, despite his soapy appearance in the parade ring, was sent off at 10-1 – generous odds for a horse that was about to make fools of everyone. Tim Jones, the top Irish amateur who had replaced the originally declared 7lb claimer Jimmy McNeill in another late switch, settled the chestnut into an easy rhythm. From the moment they jumped off, it was clear this was no ordinary novice hurdler. Gay Future traveled with a fluency and power that belied his modest form, eating up the ground with an ease that must have made the bookmakers' hearts sink.

Meanwhile, more bets were put on at Cartmel, where there was also a late jockey switch. Gay Future was down to be ridden by 7lb claimer Jimmy McNeill but the plot involved his replacement by top Irish amateur Tim Jones.

A faraway place

The choice of Cartmel for Gay Future's race on one of the busiest days of the racing year was also critical. It was not connected to the bookmakers' Exchange Telegraph 'blower' system, by which they could communicate with the racecourse, and the only means of contact was through a single red public telephone box. Once the bookmakers got wind of the bets building up, as they eventually did, the track's remoteness made it difficult to get money to the on-course betting ring in order to shorten Gay Future's odds.

Without the 'blower', Ladbrokes dispatched a motorbike rider from Manchester to Cartmel with cash to shorten the price of Gay Future, but he didn't arrive until after the race had been run.

By then Gay Future, sent off a 10-1 shot, had cantered to victory by 15 lengths under Jones.

The plot unravels

The bookmakers, considering themselves victims of a scam, refused to pay out, although some did subsequently release the winnings. But the plot was exposed on the evening of the race when a curious Sporting Life reporter telephoned Collins' yard and asked about the two horses who had been non-runners at Southwell and Plumpton. The stable worker who answered the phone revealed both horses hadn't left the yard.

This simple but explosive detail was an oversight by the plotters, arising from the fact that they had failed to tell Collins the whole plan. "No-one had mentioned that the vital ingredient of the bets were the doubles and trebles and the non-runners," Collins said later. "Otherwise I'd have sent the other two horses to the races and simply said they hadn't eaten up and no-one would have batted an eyelid when they were withdrawn."

From courtroom to cinema

After it became clear that the other two Collins entries had never been intended runners, the case ended up in Preston Crown Court in February 1976, where Murphy and Collins were found by majority verdict to be guilty of defrauding bookmakers, even though the judge had made clear his feelings about whether there was even a case to answer and all but told the jury to acquit. The other main players in the scheme were cleared of all charges before the trial commenced.

Murphy and Collins, having been fined a relatively insignificant sum and ordered to pay costs, were warned off for ten years by the Jockey Club.

The romance and roguishness of the storyline led to the 1980 movie Murphy's Stroke, with a young Pierce Brosnan (later James Bond) playing O'Grady.

Watch movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23-VQNQa4Tg