Gay Future with Murphy’s Stroke

Much sporting commentary of late has surrounded match fixing of one kind or another. But does anyone remember a certain race horsing scandal from 1974? Anybody?

1974. Great Britain. August Bank Holiday. The busiest racing day of the year with ten race meetings over the UK. And at the sleepy race track of Cartmel in Cumbria the hopes of six Irishmen and a Scot stands in the parade ring about to attempt one of the biggest betting coups in racing history.

Gay Future was a horse bought by millionaire Cork businessman Tony Murphy for £5,000 and trained by Tipperary based trainer Edward O’Grady. The two began their scheme immediately with a syndicate of people known as the Cork Mafia who included a Garda, a director of Cork Celtic FC, and a farmer who would later bring the Burger King franchise to Ireland. Gay Future was ferried to Scotland to be under the auspices of stockbroker and part-time horse trainer Tony Collins. Only the real horse wasn’t sent at all...

Instead a lookalike horse was sent to train at Scotland. The same chestnut colour, the same features, the same air and poise. But where Gay Future had shown some promise and speed, this horse was rubbish beyond belief. It performed poorly, looked in bad condition, and was generally seen by experts, punters, and bookies alike as a no-hoper. All the while the real Gay Future was in Tipperary being trained by O’Grady and jumping like Red Rum.

So when “Gay Future” was entered into a race at Cartmel in the Lake District he was a long shot. He had shown no form and was listed as being ridden by an unknown amateur jockey.

Of course the team had smuggled the real Gay Future across the water and he was ready to beat whatever was put in front of him.

Even as huge money began to go down on the horse in shops in London and Cork he remained an outsider. Much of the heavy off course betting was reserved for doubles and triples which involved Gay Future winning along with two of his stable mates who were running at other courses around the UK on the same day. Bookies saw nothing strange and thought that it was free money from foolish Irish gamblers and so the odds remained high.

The  race course at Cartmel was a backwater with no real communication network to hear of the madness going on beyond the course as hundreds of bets were piled on Gay Future. Without a “blower” to sound the alarm to bookies on the track, the odds at the course for a Gay Future victory also remained high.

Before the off, soapy shakes were rubbed into the legs of Gay Future to make the punters and bookies think he was sweating and would under perform. Only true Irish fans who closely followed racing would have recognised the listed jockey who mounted the horse as Timmy Jones (“Mr T A Jones” in all form guides), the top amateur rider in Ireland! Gay Future was eventually sent off at 10/1.

The horse won by 15 lengths.

Edward O'Grady, trainer

The other two horses from the yard were then withdrawn from their races (their horse boxes had mysteriously “broken down” on the way to the tracks) and suddenly the bookies were left holding single bets which paid out around £250,000 on Gay Future.

All told, the Cork Mafia stood to make the equivalent of around five million pounds today.  But a cartel of bookmakers in the UK smelled a rat and refused to pay out, pending an enquiry.

Then disaster struck when a journalist phoned up the stables enquiring about the two withdrawn horses which had upset the bookies' doubles and triples. An unsuspecting stable hand answered the phone and told him that “they'd been grazing outside all day”. The Scot Collins hadn't even sent the horses out of the yard. The game was up.

The whole sch-boosh were summoned to court. But the Judge was practically apologetic and he said it would be absurd to regard Murphy as a fraudulent man and “wholly wrong to send him to prison.” On the other hand he was scathing of the prosecution as can be seen from some of the court exchanges:

[JUSTICE CAULFIELD] “If you go to Cartmel and place a bet for £1,000, and the price is 10/1 on the board, you are not expecting the bookie to smile and leave his board at 10/1?”

[PROSECUTING BARRISTER] “My Lord, he would have his duster out in a flash.”

[JUSTICE CAULFIELD] “It would be all over England in seconds, whether it had a blower or not!”

Murphy and Collins were given a warning and fined £1,000.

The story became a sensation both sides of the water. At the height of the Troubles there was something roguishly innocent about the scam once it was put in comparison with everything else that was going on between the two countries. Those involved became heros rather than crooks. Such was the publicity of the affair that it was made into a film starring Niall Toibin and Pierce Brosnan entitled “Murphy’s Stroke”.

Ginger and Beryl McCain, responsible for Grand National hero Red Rum's victories, trained the favourite in the race who was beaten by Gay Future.

"I remember when the jockey came past the winning post
he stuck his hand up in the air, and looked like he'd won
a Grand National. Little did we know he more or less had!"
[BERYL McCAIN]

Click here for a great rendition of the tale.