Normally, there’s a straightforward reason why odds move in a big way before a sporting event.
Imagine Liverpool are playing and when the team news is released an hour before kick off, both Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk have been rested. That would, naturally, see the Reds’ odds drift accordingly.
Think of a major horse race too. If the hot favourite is sweating up and misbehaving in the parade ring before the off, they will drift and the second favourite will likely shorten accordingly.
But as to why Great Attitude, running on debut at Fairyhouse, shortened from 200/1 to 8/1 in the space of 40 minutes before the off in a maiden hurdle race at the Irish track, well, only those in the know can reveal why.
The bookies were on red alert, that’s for sure…
Living Up to the Name
Great Attitude certainly lived up to his name with a spirited showing in the two-mile renewal.
The six-year-old was in touch with the leaders throughout, and when jockey Tiernan Power Roche asked for more, the bay horse duly responded – going clear two out before staying on comfortably to confirm a five-length margin of victory.
It was a notable win for trainer Tom Cleary, who had evidently got the horse in fantastic shape for his competitive debut. And he had some big names to beat, with Gordon Elliott, Emmett Mullins and Gavin Cromwell all saddling runners in the Fairyhouse outing.
Diminutive, but perfectly named! 🟨🟦
The VERY well-backed Great Attitude travels all over his rivals on debut @Fairyhouse.
One for the notebook 📝 pic.twitter.com/MYiZqc15uy
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) February 22, 2025
With just 40 minutes to the off, Great Attitude was priced at 200/1 across the board. But then the move started to happen, with the horse trimmed to 125/1 by a number of firms 20 minutes later.
And with just ten minutes until the runners fell under starters’ orders, Cleary’s debutant had been cut all the way down to 8/1 thanks to a flurry of late money entering the market.
Paddy Power’s Paul Binfield remarked:
“It’s fair to say that Great Attitude was probably living up to his name on the gallops at home, as some punters managed to extract some quite fancy prices and he was really well backed.”
Cleary, meanwhile, was gobsmacked to hear of the gamble on his previously unknown horse.
“Was he 200-1? Jeez, I missed that!” he revealed.
“I was told that he was down to 8s before the off and my throat is a little bit sore now from shouting. We were expecting a good run and it’s a bonus to win it.”
The Big Gamble
The win, and the big gamble that preceded it, is made all the more intriguing by the fact that Cleary has only saddled two hurdles winners in more than 15 years as a trainer.
And, as per Tony Keenan in the Irish Field, the nature of the triumph was even more surprising given the weight of history that Great Attitude defied: ‘Since the start of 2024, there have been 384 maiden hurdles run in Ireland and, prior to Saturday, just four had been won by horses having their first run of any type.’
The combination of those two factors makes Great Attitude’s win all the more head scratching, but in sport any outcome is possible… and this isn’t the first time that a big gamble has landed over the years.
Barney’s Big Win
If you’ve never heard of Barney Curley before, it’s well worth reading up on this sometime racehorse trainer, often-times punter. He came up with an incredibly shrewd idea to run his little-known horse, Yellow Sam, at Bellewstown Races.
This being 1975, bookmakers only had landline phones with which they could track odds movements; Bellewstown only had one line operational, so Curley asked one of his friends to make a long call, pretending that a family member had taken ill.
Meanwhile, he posted a number of associates to betting shops across the Republic of Ireland and England, handing them a sealed envelope of cash and the bet written on a piece of paper. Curley contacted them when the time was right to put the bet on… ensuring he locked in odds of 20/1 for a horse that would otherwise have been dramatically snipped in price.
Naturally, Yellow Sam bolted up and won – netting Curley a cool £1.4 million which, adjusted for inflation from 1975, would be an even cooler £10.6 million today.
Taylor’s Temps
A very similar operation was run out of a recruitment agency, of all things, over in Ireland in 2010. The firm’s managing director, Douglas Taylor, also owned a horse – D Fur Dave – who he fancied to win at Kilbeggan.
But, wanting to avoid detection, Taylor borrowed 200 of the temporary staff on his books – deliberately choosing foreign nationals whose grasp of English was limited at best – and paid each of them €30 (£25) to place bets of €200 (£165) on his horse.
Each of the raw recruits was made to set an alarm on their watch or phone for exactly 18:55 – that way, Taylor could get the best price across the board before the odds on D Four Dave tumbled due to the weight of money being placed.
With 14/1 locked in, he’d landed a big gamble, given that the horse went off at 5/1. Needless to say, D Four Dave romped home and Taylor trousered €200,000 (£165,000) for his efforts… or those of his staff, anyway.