Is This Horse That Horse?

Now listen very carefully. This is the story of two racehorses from Uruguay, one the best in that nation's history, the other a $600 castoff. It is the tale of a veterinarian who tends thoroughbreds as illustrious as Secretariat, of an elegant blonde shopping for a saddle horse in Montevideo, of a jockey not famed for his virtue bringing home a 57-to-1 shot at Belmont Park, of workouts in the dark of night, of a dead horse in a town dump, of a $10,000 bet that went wrong and a $1,300 bet that went right. It is the case of a ringer at America's most famous racecourse and a $150,000 insurance fraud.

Nothing like this has ever happened at any of New York's celebrated tracks—Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga—which draw five million people a year and $1.1 billion in bets on America's champions. Or has it? There have been shady cases "out of town" at tracks like Florida Downs and Hazel Park and at those nasty places up in New England that seem to court trouble. But the aristocratic Establishment of the sport never suspected the same sort of shenanigans could happen on its own turf.

To set the scene: it is Sept. 23, 1977, the last race on a murky Friday afternoon at Belmont. Rain is falling as a field of 12 sweeps into the final turn. Lebón, the long shot at 57 to 1, is leading easily by two lengths, his neck arched with the pride of a chess knight. Through the stretch Lebón increases his lead and wins by four lengths without being menaced. When the lights flash on the infield tote board, they show a $2 win bet on Lebón is worth $116, the biggest payoff in New York in months.

As always when a long shot wins, bettors in the stands reexamine their Racing Forms to see what they missed in the horse's past performances. The Form shows Lebón is from Uruguay, that he has not won in 10 months, that he finished 11th of 12 starters two weeks before at Belmont in his first race in the U.S. A single mediocre workout is listed. His earnings for 1976 total $711. His races in Uruguay were sprints on the dirt. His Belmont upset has been accomplished on grass over 1¼ miles. Without inside information, a bet on Lebón at Belmont would have been stupid.

But at this moment Mark Gerard, a 43-year-old veterinarian, is stepping up to the $50 cashier's window in the Belmont clubhouse. He is recognized as he puts down $1,300 worth of win tickets and $600 worth of show tickets on Lebón. In the preceding half-hour Gerard had roamed back and forth from Window 226 in the grandstand, where $50 tickets are sold. His conduct was noticed, but he was not recognized. Gerard bought a handful of tickets on Lebón, went out to look at the odds board, then returned for more. Now that his selection, No. 2, has come home in front, Gerard gathers up $80,440 in cash.

The Sept. 23 race—and its outcome—make more sense visualized another way, the way Belmont officials see it now. Forget Lebón and substitute in his place a horse called Cinzano. He, too, was bred and raced in Uruguay, but his form is brilliant. Cinzano ran eight times at Maronas, the Belmont Park of Montevideo, and won seven times. In his only defeat at that track he was bumped badly and injured, but still managed to finish second to Mogambo, one of the best runners in all of South America.

On his past form Cinzano would have run away with that Sept. 23 race at Belmont. He would have been the favorite, not a 57-to-1 shot. Because Cinzano is not Mr. Ed, the talking horse, it has taken more than a month to unravel the ringer case, which is what New York stewards say it is. They say the animal racing on Sept. 23 was not Lebón, that it could have been—in fact, almost certainly was—Cinzano.

The tipoff that something was amiss came with a phone call on Oct. 14 from a Uruguayan newspaperman to Bud Hyland, who serves as The Jockey Club steward in New York. Hyland was told Lebón could not have won the race, that the winner probably was Cinzano. The reporter gave no explanation as to how he knew this. There were rumors in New York last week that a blonde who allegedly plunged $10,000 on "Lebón" in his first U.S. start on Sept. 9, dropping the price on the horse from 55 to 1 to 7 to 1 at post time, was not told the horse would win his second start, and in her anger at being stiffed, alerted the Uruguayan newspaperman to the scam.

In any case, El Pais, a newspaper in Montevideo, asked the Associated Press for the winner's circle picture from the Sept. 23 race, and on the basis of that declared that Lebón was actually Cinzano.

By Oct. 25, the New York State Racing and Wagering Board was sufficiently convinced of hanky-panky to suspend the licenses of Gerard, who had imported Cinzano and Lebón, and 32-year-old Jack Morgan, who owned and trained the horse running as Lebón on Sept. 23.