Fallon one of 16 arrested
Champion jockey Kieren Fallon was one of the three riders arrested as part of an investigation into alleged race fixing. Fergal Lynch and Darren Williams have been named as the other two, together with trainer Karl Burke.
The investigation centres on suspicions of corruption within horse racing and fixing the outcome of races. It is understood the allegations involve more than 80 races over the last two years.
Of the 16 arrests, eight were made in South Yorkshire, three in North Yorkshire, three in Suffolk and two in Hertfordshire, a police spokesman confirmed.
Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Wilmott, of City of London Police, who are heading the probe, said: “Of the people we have arrested, three are jockeys and one is a horse trainer.
“We have amassed a large amount of information, including computer records and documentation seized, and will now commence the detailed task of examining it all.”
City of London Police Assistant Commissioner Mike Bowron said: “The City of London Police are leading this complex investigation with assistance from police in Suffolk, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. “We are leaders in the investigation of economic crime and are very experienced in dealing with large-scale fraud cases.
“We are very pleased to have taken the lead role in this operation, which spans the whole of the country. This case is of great national significance, not just to the racing community, but to the wider public throughout Britain and Ireland.”
Jockeys’ Association chief executive John Blake said the investigation is very serious.
“The police have amassed a huge amount of evidence. Of course it is very damaging to the reputation of racing, and very damaging to the reputation of trainers and jockeys potentially and it’s a great concern to us.
“The Jockey Club itself licenses the jockeys and trainers and as a consequence of that they have their own proper disciplinary process to call upon and it seems at this point that this process has been leapfrogged and become a police matter, because to my knowledge no jockeys have been involved in an investigation into this.”
Betting guru John McCririck said this latest scandal undermines the integrity of racing and could not have come at a worse time.
“What has brought this all to the surface is the emergence of the exchanges, where you can not only back horses but also lay them to lose. Previously, only bookmakers could lay a horse to lose, you had to have a licence and there weren’t too many of them.
“Now anyone can go on the exchanges and lay a horse to lose for whatever reason. But there is now a paper trail and all the business of the exchanges is opened up to the authorities. In the old days the bookmakers kept very quiet and protected the confidentiality of their clients.
“But it is the image of racing that suffers. We have the position with athletics and with swimming that whenever a record is broken, people think what drugs are they on?
“That’s what you think of straight away rather than what a fantastic achievement.
“People will be asking was that race crooked and was that horse trying? That has been the cry down the centuries about horse racing but now it has been brought into these lurid headlines once again.”
The most infamous scandal of the 19th century involved the ‘Trodmore Hunt’ meeting. On August 1, 1898, The Sportsman newspaper listed the runners and riders and several bookmakers - they were, of course, illegal at that time - took bets on the races and paid out on the results published in The Sportsman the following day. Except there is no such place as Trodmore and there was no meeting. The fraudsters got clean away.
Disguising one horse as another, as in the Gay Future scandal, was popular in the days before systematic veterinary testing and “horse passports”.
In 1949, Edward Hill, a jockey-turned-trainer, and his gambling partner Jack Morris won themselves large sums of money with a horse called Peaceful William, who had previously been worse than useless. The improvement was due to the fact that the very useful and similar-looking Stellar City had been substituted. Hill and Morris got greedy and kept on winning, arousing suspicions. They went to jail for 18 months.
Trainer John Bowles was banned for 20 years for a similar scam in 1978 when a horse with little form called In The Money won five races. The beast that actually did the running was Cobbler’s March.
In the months before the Derby of 1961, bookmakers were facing bankruptcy due to the flood of money for Pinturischio. Trainer Noel Murless ran him in the 2,000 Guineas where he finished fourth after winning first time out, and reports from the Newmarket gallops made Pinturischio seem a world-beater. But a few weeks before the Derby a gang broke into his stables and gave Pinturischio a dose of elephant laxative. He never raced again. No one was ever charged with the offence, but stable security was tightened everywhere.
In many people’s eyes, Lester Piggott, who won the Epsom Derby nine times, the greatest jockey who ever lived. He was the housewives’ choice in every Epsom Derby, but he was just as legendary for his meanness, and that included his contributions to the Inland Revenue in Britain.
With an estimated fortune of £25m in at least ten bank accounts around the world, Piggott still tried to evade tax and in 1987 he was sentenced to three years in prison for cheating the Revenue of £2.8m. The case revealed a secret account for betting, strictly forbidden to jockeys.
He served one year and was stripped of his OBE.
