With his wide brimmed hat and his cold arrogant stare, Barney Curley looks like a 1930' s Chicago gangster, one who Al Capone might use for bloody business. Yet his thoughtful autobiography reveals a man of strong religious beliefs and a powerful moral certainty. But he is never physically violent despite the austere demeanour. After a dispute with Channel 4's John McCririck, he tells the cowering hack "Never, ever mention my name on television again or I'll defrock you in front of your viewers.." Curle says "Yes, I did threaten him but not physically. I've never had much of a punch on me and certainly not then as a fifty-one year old who was not known for working out in the gym"

Curley's is a compelling and colourful story. He has been a pop group manager, a black marketeer, pub owner, betting shop owner and is now Windsor night club proprietor. His father ruined the family finances by running up huge gambling debts on greyhounds which far from deterring his son, only seems to have instilled the iron determination to succeed as a gambler. Indeed, Curley's colossal self belief is a constant theme throughout his story.

This powerful sense of his own destiny - inspired by his Jesuit education, clearly helps him to treat both triumph and disasters philosophically, and explains why he has survived so long as a heavy punter. Still it has often been a close run battle. Nearly dying from TB, found guilty of selling his mansion by illegal lottery and close to insolvency by betting losses, he scraped out of trouble by Roberto 's victory in the Epsom Derby by the shortest of short heads... "It was make or break day for me. If Lester had got beaten there would have been no way back after that. I would have been left with a huge debt and nothing more to bet with."

His account of his great coup with Yellow Sam at Eellewstown in 1975 is riotously funny. His friend Benny blocked the only 'phone box on the course for 25 minutes before the "off" to a non-existent hospital about a dying aunt thus preventing bookmakers hedging off-course money back to the course. Hence Ireland's greatest ever coup was landed with a S.F. of 20/1 and over £300,000 pocketed.

Such a fearless and controversial man was bound to have confrontations with racing authorities. Warned off for allegedly threatening Graham Bradely over his riding of a favourite at Ascot; withdrawing his horses at the start of races as a protest over low prize money, he attracts conflict everywhere.

Yet his very lack of blandness is refreshing. Curley is the quintessential outsider. A loner with no desire to be liked or admired. A Northern Ireland Catholic, an anti-hero. Where another legendary Irish gambler, J.P. McManus is lauded as an Irish hero, Curley is viewed by many as a nuisance.

All the author 's proceeds from this book will go directly to a Zambian charity - hence the title - and the very nature of his candid views on all aspects of racing result in a distinctive book which merits a wide readership.

Review by 'Rising Falcon'