Tackling the dopers


Chris Pitt looks back 50 years when bookmakers were urged to help smash the doping gangs ... and who was the mystery French woman?


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shops, the Duke of Norfolk’s committee, which had been formed to inquire into the question of doping, in particular the rules pertaining to doping, published its report. It recommended the abolition of the old rule whereby a trainer was automatically disqualifi ed if a horse of his was found to have been doped. Given that doping was rife in racing at that time, it was the correct decision. The most notorious case that year was of Pinturischio, trained by Noel Murless. He acquired a big reputation after making an impressive winning debut in Newmarket’s Wood Ditton Strakes. Although fi nishing only fourth in the Two Thousand Guineas, he was


n May 4, 1961, three days after the legalisation of betting


heavily backed for the 1961 Derby. It was intended to


run him in the Dante Stakes at York but he was ‘got at’ the night before in his stable at home and was unable to run. He recovered from that attack, though, and remained a leading candidate for the Derby. However, a second attack not only stopped him from running at Epsom but was of suffi cient severity to prevent him from ever racing again.


winner, Nicolaus Silver, narrowly missed being ‘nobbled’. His trainer, Fred Rimell, had been suspicious of a French woman who visited the yard as a potential new owner. When Rimell spotted her at Stratford with a group of undesirable characters he went home and swopped Nicolaus Silver’s box with another grey horse. Sure enough, the dopers broke in and got the other horse. Later that year, on


That year’s Grand National


paralysed. It was not a nice sight,” said Fresh Winds’ trainer, Roy Whiston, whose stables were near Market Drayton, in Shropshire. “I informed Weatherbys and then had a private veterinary test taken.” Whiston was convinced that at least two more of his horses had been doped, as they had displayed similar symptoms to those exhibited by Fresh Winds. “Unfortunately it was not until after they had raced that I discovered it,” he said. “Both surprisingly drifted in the betting when I thought they would have been at much shorter prices. Both fi nished well down the course. They were staggering all over the place and when they returned to the unsaddling enclosure they looked as if they were drunk.”


November 16, the 10-year-old steeplechaser Fresh Winds was found “half asleep in his box”, a few hours before he was due to run at Uttoxeter, a race in which he would have started a hot favourite. He became the 16th horse known to have been doped within the space of a few months.


“He could not stand. His hind legs were


Whiston then spoke of the same mystery French woman that Rimell had encountered. She had visited Whiston’s yard twice while he was away, told his stable lads that she planned to open a shop near Shrewsbury and bring over three horses from France. “She asked my lads to show her where each horse was stabled and said it was for ‘interest’s sake.’ She then began making notes on a pad and I reckon now she was actually making a plan of my stable yard and the boxes.”


day she called at my other yard a mile away and went through the same routine.


driven up by a man in a black saloon car and claimed she was a friend of a titled lady who had recommended that she


36 November/December 2011 BOS Magazine and 40 years old. She was


the woman was dark haired, between 20


“My lads tell me He added: “The next


placed her horses with me.” The following week a well-


known London gambler was identifi ed as the man who had accompanied a French woman to the stables of Bishop Auckland trainer Arthur Stephenson on November 18. The man had been spotted talking to a representative of a bookmaking fi rm in the lounge of the Royal Station Hotel in Newcastle an hour before the fi rst race at Newcastle. That afternoon, Hiawatha II, trained by Stephenson, started 2-1 favourite for a three-mile chase but trailed in last, beaten almost 40 lengths. His owner, Mrs A C Straker, said: “He ran like a dead horse.” A Jockey Club spokesman


said: “We know this man well – and his confederates. They include another London gambler and a Manchester bookmaker.” The Jockey Club’s security


department launched an investigation and began working with police forces in various parts of the country. They believed that two women and not one, as previously thought, were assisting a gang in doping attempts. They also believed that they were English-born, but adopting French accents when visiting stables. Six days after the Newcastle


race, The Sporting Life reported that a French-speaking London business woman who was believed to have visited stables where horses had been doped, had still not returned to her business in the West End. An employee said: “We expect her back next week.” The net, it seemed, was tightening.


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