One of the papers ran this yesterday. They had an article about St valentines Day sporting massacres. They missed the big one of course which was Oldham Athletics massacre of West Ham in the League Cup semi final. 6 - 0 on St Valentines Day 1990.
Cheers, Chris
3) The Bowie Race Track trifecta fix, 1975
Maryland, 1975. On the one-mile dirt oval of Bowie Race Track the 12 runners and riders for the day’s ninth and final race broke from the stalls and settled into a running order. At the race’s conclusion it did not go unnoticed that the entire field had paraded to the finish-line in exactly that order over the entire distance of the six-furlong sprint. The winner was Mr Ransom (5-1), who finished a half-length in front of Choice Rib (7-2) with the long outsider Sealand (47-1) a further nine lengths back in third. None of the three had been particularly well fancied and with the favourites having finished down the field the trifecta paid $927.30. Shortly before the race one punter had approached window No108 of the mutuel and bought 38 “box” tickets, covering the first three horses home in any order, for $684 dollars. When the horses he had picked duly obliged, his initial investment was worth $35,237.
Most of it was never collected. On a grim day for horse racing that would become known locally as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre, for no other reason than it took place on 14 February, an investigation was called and it soon emerged that six of the jockeys who had ridden in the race – and none of whose mounts achieved a higher placing than sixth – had pooled money to pay for the tickets and dispatched Ernest Davidson, the brother of jockey Jesse Davidson, who was on the eighth placed finisher CeCe Belle, to buy them. Ernest drew attention to himself by buying them all together from one window and suspicions were further aroused when stewards studied footage of the race and identified several obvious non-triers. While the first three jockeys home were not suspected of skulduggery or chicanery, six others soon found themselves in hot water.
After two of the 38 winning tickets were cashed racecourse betting tellers were warned to alert track security if anyone tried to redeem the rest of them. Two women with local racing connections approached with one each only to change their minds and flee when confronted by investigators. The remaining 34 tickets were later incinerated by jockeys Eric Walsh and Ben Feliciano, who panicked on discovering their money-making wheeze was the subject of a federal investigation. Walsh had ridden Mike O, the hot favourite to finish last of the 12 runners, almost 30 lengths behind the winner. The horse’s trainer later described his horse as “a bum” and confessed he too would have joined his jockey in betting on him running badly if he had known what was going on.
Both Walsh and Feliciano, along with their fellow jockeys Davidson and Luigi Gino were subsequently indicted, convicted and sentenced to six months each, becoming the first athletes in American history to be given a federal prison sentence for conspiring to fix a sporting event. Between them they had won over 4,000 races and $8m in prize money. Their weighing room colleagues John Babdolal and Carlos Jiminez were also named as unindicted co-conspirators but not charged after agreeing to co-operate with prosecutors. All six admitted contributing to chipping in to pay for the tickets bought by Davidson’s brother, but only Jiminez admitted to applying the brakes to his horse to prevent it securing a place in the money. Following their sentencing the four jockeys were released on their own recognizance and banned from racing. Only three of them served their time as, tragically, Walsh later took his own life rather than have a spell in prison.
Peter C Angelous was part of the defence team representing the four jockeys who denied any part in actually fixing the race, their argument being that it was shrewd judgment rather than any corruption on their part that had prompted them to bet on the outcome. “We couldn’t overcome the betting evidence, the fact that there was a large block of tickets purchased by a relative of one of the riders,” he would later tell the Washington City Paper. “But that doesn’t mean they were guilty.”
talking about a massacre if you dont pull your finger you will finish last and the Gang will be ragging you for months
They have already started. Those guys are a laugh. You ought to see them pouring over their graphs and charts and laptops.It's like watching CNN on election night.
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