The Electric Pitchfork

A perfectly executed gamble on Yellow Sam that netted Barney Curley a fortune Mastermind Barney Curley above the betting ring at Bellewstown The payout was enormous for the time, £306,000 – equivalent to more than £2 million today – but no individual shop had to pay out more than £6,000 On a sun-griddled afternoon at Bellewstown in the summer of 1975 Barney Curley was crouched among the bushes adjacent to the third-last, watching the hindquarters of a field of undistinguished hurdlers disappear towards the finishing post. Curley was accompanied by Ann Brogan, whose father Jimmy had trained Gold Legend to win the 1958 Irish Grand National. She was sister of Barry, the jump jockey. She, too, had ridden winners as an amateur under rules. On this day it wasn't her racing expertise that Curley sought, but her wheels. Curley had "a big, flashy car" at the time, which would have attracted unwanted interest. So surreptitious had he been that few would be ...

LUXX gift edit: the best Christmas presents to buy The Porsche 911 reimagined by the boutique restoration house Singer Vehicle Design The most glamorous, clever and beautifully made Christmas presents, compiled by Sophie Goodwin – with a little help from our experts BAKER & EVANS Have you seen my keys? Miuccia Prada’s wit has expanded to keyrings with this robot-like creature, which comes with stickers for creative personalisation. £380,  prada.com Deck the halls Let’s face it, there’s something a little “midlife crisis” about getting decks: the 2018 equivalent of taking up guitar lessons and playing  Wonderwall  at house parties. But when even the new chief executive of Goldman Sachs is a part-time dance DJ who spins records in Miami clubs under the nickname DJ D-Sol, maybe it’s becoming acceptable, and these decks are a good entry point. They feature in-built tutorials for mastering the basics, they are USB-powered, so are highly por...