Racing industry in turmoil after police raids
Properties searched, stables raided in wide-ranging investigation
Two champion harness racing drivers are among those involved in a wideranging police investigation into alleged race-fixing.
Blair Orange is one of several people being interviewed by police after raids around New Zealand yesterday, and a search warrant was executed on the home of Dexter Dunn.
Orange broke the New Zealand record for wins by a reinsman in a season when he won the national premiership with 232 winners for the season, breaking his friend Dunn’s premiership reign.
Dunn is in the United States but the
Herald has learned that police yesterday searched Dunn’s home and truck, and took away a computer.
Eight properties were searched when Operation Inca saw stables raided and trainers and drivers escorted off their properties for questioning.
It is understood police have been monitoring the communications of harness racing identities with phone taps for up to 18 months.
Police had expected to begin making arrests and laying charges yesterday afternoon in an on-going investigation that appears to be focused on betting. Police Detective Superintendent Tim Anderson said search warrants were executed in Christchurch, Manawatu and Invercargill and more would be carried out later this week.
The raids come after police began an inquiry in April last year. This followed an approach by the Racing Integrity Unit, an independent body charged with managing integrity issues in the three racing codes, harness, thoroughbred and greyhounds.
The Invercargill property run by trainers Kirstin Barclay and Paul Ellis was among those visited.
Barclay confirmed she was questioned by police yesterday. The horsewoman believed that was because she regularly used some of the horsemen at the centre of the investigation to drive her horses.
“I have got absolutely nothing to hide,” she said. “They were not interested in me.”
A number of people would be appearing in court this week, Anderson said.
Police are believed to have gone to the property of Orange’s boss, Ken Barron, in Canterbury yesterday morning and Orange was believed to be speaking to police.
Several of those questioned have had their phones and computers seized.
Anderson said that the investigation was not just limited to racefixing and could include cases of horse-doping.
Racing Minister Winston Peters said he was deeply disappointed by news of pending charges but noted that a lot of support was given to the Racing Integrity Unit, which alerted police to its concerns in April last year.
“It is clearly working because if anyone thinks in that industry that they are above the law or above the requirements of integrity, they couldn’t be further wrong.”
Peters said that while few facts had yet emerged the focus was on a small group in an industry that involved many tens of thousands of people.
Meanwhile, trainers whose properties are understood to have been visited by the police include Barron, Nigel McGrath, Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen, John Dunn and Andrew Stuart.
The luxury property of Christchurch racehorse owner, punter and car sales businessman Graham Beirne is also among those whose properties were raided in the investigation.
Late yesterday Beirne told the
Herald by text from Bali, where he is on holiday, that he had been “advised against any further discussions with the media”.
He earlier told Stuff that he was a suspect. “All I have to say is one word: nonsense. I don’t know where it’s coming from. If they are talking racefixing, it’s nonsense.”
In 2014 the TAB moved to restrict Beirne’s betting because the agency was losing “a significant amount of money” on his fixed-odds betting.
It sought to limit Beirne to maximum wins of $2000.
Beirne told Stuff at the time: “On the one hand they’re complaining about leakage — don’t bet overseas, they say, but you can only back losers in New Zealand — ‘You can play in our sandpit but only if you lose’.”
The TAB said it was standard practice around the world for corporate bookmakers to restrict winning punters.
Anderson also appealed for anyone with information about racefixing or match-fixing to come forward.
Purdon told the Herald that he had not been questioned by police and had no issue with them looking over his property.
“As far as race-fixing goes I know there’s nothing involved there, but I’m quite comfortable. But as I say, they weren’t that interested in me.”
Whether the current harness racing race fixing blow ends up a bleeding nose or a gaping wound will almost certainly depend on the contents of texts and phone calls now in police hands.
Some of the industry’s biggest names spent at least part of yesterday in police custody, and while unconfirmed, some have already been charged with race fixing or similar offences.
Names at the centre of the investigation named Operation Inca include last season’s premiershipwinning driver Blair Orange, the man he dethroned for that title Dexter Dunn, and Dunn’s brother John, himself a leading driver.
The Herald understands at least one other successful Canterbury trainer was extensively questioned by police, while they also visited the stables of champion trainers Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen, with Purdon reportedly not part of the investigation.
While police yesterday suggested race fixing and potentially drugs are at the centre of their investigations the Herald was told that illegal performance-enhancing substances used on horses are not the focal point of Operation Inca. The investigation was sparked by information passed to police by the Racing Integrity Unit as early as April last year and police have tapped phones and checked text messages as part of the investigation.
What they found or are still to find in those texts or calls will be crucial to building a case against any of those under investigation because race fixing is incredibly hard to prove. And often even harder to actually achieve.
While there have and always will be those who are suspicious of racing being “fixed”, the reality is it has never been cleaner because of technology.
Most trainers and drivers/jockeys don’t bet because it is too easy to trace, with bookies openly supplying betting records to authorities.
So any of the people under investigation placing a bet on a race they were involved with would set off alarm bells regardless of the result.
Which is why the spouses of several of those under investigation were also questioned yesterday, to see whether they had placed bets on their partner’s behalf. That is almost certain to be a dead end.
What is more likely to end up at the centre of the investigation and any future charges will be betting activities of third parties who bet on information supplied by horsepeople and may have rewarded them for that information.
That in itself is an offence but a relatively minor one.
The real problem for harness racing would be if any of the parties involved colluded to rig a race, supplied that information to a third party and benefited from that information and any money subsequently won. That would have huge ramifications, an iceberg to racing’s Titanic.
Text messages, phone calls or face-to-face conversations between punters looking for a tip, even just an opinion, from horsepeople have been going on for as long as there have been phones or racetracks.
So if the text messages, recordings and apparently emails, the latter a seemingly very strange way to fix a race, confirm that any drivers knew each other’s plans and passed that information on, then harness racing has a problem like cricket’s famous match fixing scandals.
The other option is a punter ringing multiple horsepeople, putting that information together and betting accordingly for their own purposes.
Christchurch-based owner Graham Beirne also had property raided yesterday but was overseas and denies any wrongdoing.
Whether any punter, in New Zealand or overseas, would have the money and more importantly the power to fix a race and convince the people at the centre of this investigation is questionable. Such scams are incredibly hard to pull off, as the mastermind needs drivers capable of controlling the main variables of the race without outside interference.
The money gambled on New Zealand harness races is relatively small compared with overseas thoroughbred action and any unusual transactions are easily spotted and the driving tactics around them noted.
The electronic trail is so pronounced, the telecommunications so easy to track, anybody engaging in prolonged race-fixing would be certain to get caught.
This investigation could last a long time but regardless of how it pans out, to the punting public, perception is often reality, and harness racing’s reputation has taken a huge blow.
The irony is this: Orange and Dexter Dunn travelled to almost every race meeting they attended last season together. I spoke to them before, after and sometimes even during those meetings. They are, hand on heart, two of the worst tipsters I have ever met among the leading horsepeople and if your betting strategy was punting on what they thought was going to happen, you would go broke.
But now the racing industry will wait to find out what was said, texted and written.