Carried away on a day at the races a successful businessman bid for and bought a horse from a seller. ‘What do I do now?’ he asked a trainer friend. ‘Find the lad who brought him here, slip him 20 quid and ask him to tell you everything he can about the animal.’ The crinkly stuff safely pocketed, the lad’s response was succinct: ‘He’s bloody hard to catch out in the field and when you do catch him he’s no bloody good.’ In the hope of avoiding such scenarios most people buy horses from reputable sales, and/or employ a bloodstock agent to guide them through the intricacies of pedigree, breeding and conformation. They may now think twice about doing so: a report commissioned by the British Horseracing Association and conducted by a senior ex-policeman into the buying and selling of bloodstock has revealed that the industry is ineffectively regulated and scandalously open to secret profiteering by agents and vendors at the expense of owners.
Former chief superintendent Justin Felice, in a report leaked to the Racing Post, identifies practices by a 5 per cent minority of ‘rotten apples’ which range from the immoral and deceitful to the potentially criminal.
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