Racing on Trial

Did top jockeys take bribes?

With its graceful elm trees, its ornate Victorian clubhouse sparkling white in the clear mountain air, there is no more beautiful spot in all of thoroughbred racing than the historic old track at Saratoga. The upstate New York spa was the favorite vacation home of 19th century millionaires who came to the village to take the waters for their health and race horses for their entertainment. More than a century after America's first organized race meetings were staged in Saratoga, the spa remains an oasis of calm, a place where gentlemen and their ladies come to place a sporting wager on the performance of prime horseflesh.

But a more sordid picture of the blandishments of Saratoga emerged in a Brooklyn courtroom last week. Testifying in the race-fixing trial of onetime Jockey Con Errico, 58, another ex-jock, Ben Feliciano, described a bribe attempt at Saratoga in the summer of 1974. Feliciano was riding in several races that day. He had gone to the toilet in the jockeys' dressing room when an unknown man walked into an adjoining stall. The man shoved an envelope containing a wad of bills across the tiles, told Feliciano that the money was his if he would simply "hold" --rein in--his horse in a race. Feliciano said he refused the attempted bribe (indeed, he won the race), but since has admitted to taking fix money for other races at Saratoga during 1974.

Errico's trial is the latest in a series of federal and state prosecutions for race fixing in five states. Twenty-two men have been convicted in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Michigan. But the New York case is by far the most serious, for some of the nation's finest and most famous riders have been named in court testimony. Jockey Jose Amy, 26 --like Feliciano an admitted fixer who struck a deal with prosecutors in exchange for testifying--claimed that eleven jockeys knew of the schemes, including three riders who were in the Preakness last weekend. The trio: Jacinto Vasquez, jockey of the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk; Angel Cordero Jr., a two-time Derby winner who rode Codex; and Jorge Velasquez, Colonel Moran's rider in last week's Preakness. Also implicated by Amy were Jean Cruguet, jockey for 1977 Triple Crown Winner Seattle Slew; Braulio Baeza; and Eddie Belmonte.

As the trial drew to an end, both Feliciano's and Amy's testimony had been seriously undermined by defense attorneys, who argued that the two jockeys' previous statements before federal grand juries were often contradictory. Amy, in fact, admitted to lying under oath before the grand jury in hopes of sparing his fellow riders. Said Amy: "I thought I could alleviate the pressure on me and my friends." When asked by the prosecutor whom he was hoping to protect, Amy replied: "Cordero and Velasquez."

Defense attorneys tried to establish that Errico was in Los Angeles during the period when he was supposedly fixing races in New York. But federal officials attempted to prove that a number of bettors were seen meeting with Errico and subsequently cashing huge payoffs (as much as $129,000 by a single bettor) on trifecta wagers. According to Amy, he and the other jockeys were paid up to $7,500 a race by Errico to assure that their horses finished out of the money.

Whomever the jury believes, there are certain to be reverberations. Amy has been suspended from racing. New York State racing officials have indicated that, regardless of the verdict, each of the jockeys mentioned at the trial faces disciplinary hearings and may lose his license. At stake is the integrity of racing in the sport's premier state. Amy asserted that he and his friends in the jocks' dressing room discussed fixing races "twice a week" during 1974 and 1975. If this is true, the best of racing will be proved no better than the worst. -

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