Cops, Robbers & Horses

Leaning against a clubhouse pillar, the bald little bookmaker in suede shoes chomped on a Corona and studied his manicured fingernails with ostentatious indifference. It was ten minutes before post time on the opening day of the brilliant $1,150,000 fall meeting at Belmont Park, New York State's biggest and handsomest track.

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt was on hand to watch two fillies carry his cerise & white diamonds in their maiden tests (they finished one & two); so was Warren Wright, whose Citation, Coaltown and Free America would all race in the 18-day meeting. Hidden in the crowd near the pari-mutuel betting windows, two Pinkerton agents ignored racing's big names and kept their eyes on the bald bookie in suede shoes.

In a minute, they saw what they were waiting for: a substantial-looking citizen approached and murmured a few words to Baldy. The bookie's eyes flicked to the tote board, caught the changing odds on the day's featured race--the $25,000 Fall Highweight Handicap. Then Baldy winked. No money had changed hands, but the substantial citizen had just made a substantial--and illegal--bet.

The Pinkerton men waited until Jockey Eddie Arcaro had ridden C. V. Whitney's filly, First Flight, down the six-furlong straightaway in a near-record 1:08 3/5. Then one of the agents stepped up to Baldy. "How would you like to talk to Mr. O'Grady at the Pinkerton Agency?" Blurted Baldy in hurt indignation: "Pinkerton? O'Grady? What am I? A bookmaker?" But he was not indignant enough to want to meet O'Grady--he vanished through the nearest gate.

Dirty Business. Jerome Vincent O'Grady, 38, a personable Manhattan lawyer and former G-man who spends most of his working life at the New York tracks but never places a bet, is boss of Pinkerton's New York Racing Service. Since April, when the racing season started, O'Grady and his 300-odd P-men have ejected, or warned, about 500 bookies at Belmont, Jamaica, Aqueduct and Saratoga. For this and other services, New York's racing associations pay the Pinkerton agency about $1,000,000 a year.

The investment is worthwhile: by discouraging bookmakers from plying their trade at the track, the Pinkerton men increase the take at the pari-mutuel windows (average day's total: $1,800,000). And by hunting down touts--who start most of the rumors about fixed races--the Pinkerton men help maintain public confidence in the New York tracks.

To help The Jockey Club keep horse racing "clean," Pinkerton men have also investigated 1,650 owners and trainers, photographed or fingerprinted 43,000 grooms, exercise boys and jockeys, and photographed 31,000 thoroughbreds. Uniformed policemen patrol the stable area against pyromaniacs, horse-dopers and gamblers 24 hours a day.

Clean Blotters. O'Grady likes to think of Belmont Park, with its 453 verdant acres, as a prosperous city--and of himself as the police commissioner. Says he: "No city of 20,000 has a police blotter with so few entries."

Two blotter entries O'Grady especially likes to recall. When Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch lost $2,000 near the Belmont gate, before he had a chance to lose it at the windows, O'Grady recovered the roll with the rubber bands still intact. Another time, a temporarily well-to-do businessman suddenly decided to "invest" his savings of $80,000 in one glorious day at the races. Two special agents who spotted the man peeling off thousand-dollar bills at a pari-mutuel window put a purposely obvious "tail" on him, so that every footpad within miles would keep hands off. The businessman got home safely--but broke.

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