Horse racing is definitely one of the best sports for the betting business. This sport is intriguing, beautiful, and certainly competitive. The industry is full of scandals like horse switches, increase-performance drugs, and race-fixing. GBC Time has collected the biggest scandals in horse racing history below in the blog post. Let us see what people are ready to do to see their horse cross the finishing line the first.
Undoubtedly, horse racing was first invented as a royal sport. The monarchs preferred this sport to many others. You can also find more about the UK monarch representatives’ participation in the horse racing development in the link.
Turning back to the biggest scandals in the horse racing industry, here are some of the most shocking cases from the past.
Positive drug tests at the Kentucky Derby race
In 1968, the horse named Dancer’s Image won the Kentucky Derby by crossing the finish line from the last position. This horse race was definitely impressive and quite unbelievable. Seeing such an achievement, the judges decided to drug-test the horse, and as an outcome Dancer’s Image was positive for phenylbutazone. Of course, this drug was banned from use in horse racing.
Eventually, the win was erased, and the horse owner Peter Fuller was punished by paying the fees and spending years in the courtroom. In total, Fuller spent more than his winning prize of $122 000 at that horse racing.
‘Big Tony’ fixes hundreds of races
Big Tony was quite a popular character in the horse racing industry back in the 1970s. Anthony Ciulla, which is the real name of Big Tony, bribed jockeys in plenty of races so he could be in charge of each horse. Ciulla participated almost in each horse racing in the country, except for California state. It seemed that his scamming plan was working so perfectly until one moment.
In 1975, the paid jockey was reining his horse too obviously so the judges suspected a violation. Later, the jockey told everything to the judges, which led to Big Tony’s arrest by the FBI. Buts still, his story was not over, yet. The government asked Ciulla to help the further investigation to shut down other scammers and frauds in horse racing.
Horses switched in 1974
In 1974, an Irish millionaire Tony Murphy tried to cheat by switching horses. The sense was simple, he found two similar horses that both looked not so competitive. The opponents did not take this horse as a serious threat to the winning. But as soon as the horse stand on the start line, everybody was impressed.
The thing is that another horse in this fraud scheme was trained by one of the strongest coaches in the UK – Antony Collins.
As the result, Murphy’s scheme was recognized, but he never went to jail.
Fake horse’s death
Sometimes, the fantasy of cheaters can definitely surprise you enough. One such enthusiast was Dr. Mark Gerard, who decided to fake death for a very successful and promising horse.
The horse named Cinzano was a Horse of the Year in 1976 and according to the veterinarian’s report, an accidental death was recorded. The main goal was to replace one horse with this extremely professional and successful horse.
Eventually, Dr. Mark Gerard was placed in jail for this fraud scheme.
Who stole the horse?
Shergar was one of the most popular horses back in the 1980s. The hose won plenty of horse racing tournaments with breaking records as well. But, in 1983 its career seemed to come to an end because of the thieves who broke into the farm and order to load the horse into the truck. It took a long time for the police to start searching, which put the owners away from finding a winner.
Later, the thieves asked for a $3 million buyout to give the horse back. But the owners decided not to pay them to avoid other potential stealings.
