The Betfair/City of London Police crown trial of Irish jockey Kieran Fallon and his co-defendants collapsed yesterday after Judge Thayne Forbes determined that the defence did not have a case to answer.
There are two key questions that we need to address:
i) Why was this case brought to trial?
ii) Is this that rare thing, a valid whitewash?
Before attempting to answer these points, I should explain a few things for newer readers. Before working in football, for five years I traded professionally around the horseracing rails and betting rings of Britain. My Economics Ph.D thesis (undertaken at the same time) was entitled "The Impact of Conspicuous Money on Outcomes in British Horserace Betting Markets" and, before I deprofessionalised, I undertook several high level consultancy projects within the British horseracing industry. Although I rarely trade on horses nowadays due to the corruption, I do get involved in Cheltenham and a few of the other major events. My specific knowledge of recent developments in the marketplace is sketchy but I think that I have a reasonable enough overview of the industry sector to provide an angle on the Fallon Affair.
We should also state that Dietrological had wide-ranging internal discussions about whether to offer to help Betfair with their case against Fallon but, for the reasons laid out below, we decided against offering our/my services.
Finally on the boring stuff, we are limited in what we are able to say on certain matters due to legal reasons. If we say something, it is because we are able to prove our point with hard evidence.
Comprendez?
In the mid-nineties, Kieran Fallon was yer man in Newmarket. Fallon performed a highly professional job for both the British racing establishment and for certain key elements of the bookmaking industry. Choosing our words quite carefully, there were many events where it was not feasible to trade on a Fallon mount due to externalised and inappropriate influences. The industry sector, particularly around Newmarket, clearly owed yer man a favour and, yesterday, Thayne Forbes did the decent stiff-upper-lip thing and, in releasing the Fallon Six, additionally prevented what is left of the integrity of British horseracing from being further raked through the mud in full public glare. They'll probably give the judge a gong for services rendered.
Anyway, back to the mid-nineties. Kieran Fallon's talents for dancing from below were not restricted to the saddle and, in a style that would have made Dave Allen proud, he was not an unknown bedroom guest of some pretty posh English totty. Fair dinkum - he was making the rich richer... Then there occurred the alleged liaison with Henry Cecil's wife which, on level of severity, isn't far below fucking a monarch really and enough was decided to be enough. In the imperial days of yore, the little man would have been despatched on a prison ship to Botany Bay but Ballydoyle was seen as a viable modern alternative.
With the yoke of underachievement removed from his shoulders, Fallon won six out of seven jockeys titles, collected a whole host of major race victories, came home on some well-backed favourites to the annoyance of his former paymasters and was so superior to the majority of his fellow jockeys that he was still able to throw in the occasional underachieving ride just for the craic.
Betfair must sit on masses of insider trading that never reaches the light of day never mind ending up in the highest court of the land. All bookmakers utilise inside knowledge for avoiding liabilities, for proprietary trading as well as for hedging purposes. The choice of Fallon's gang was arbitrary. Aside from the thirteen other jockeys who have lost their licences for similar misdemeanours in the last couple of years, there is a whole societal sub-network of families, individuals, lobbies, associations and institutions that dominate the "sport" in Britain. We choose not to name names in this place but Fallon's "arrangement" with the bookmakers was hardly unique. There was presumably a bit of grudge, a retaliatory punch in an ongoing battle, even a little anti-Irishness in the decision to proceed against the best flat jockey of modern times. Fallon's co-defendant Philip Sherkle is surely correct when he asserted outside the courtroom: "I thought only horses wore blinkers".
The choice of Fallon had further general benefits to the bookmaking industry in Britain. By keeping a highly talented loose cannon out of the game at the peak of his career, they regained control of the marketplace to significant financial benefit and, additionally, by being able to paint the fake public reality that betting exchanges somehow invite criminality into the gambling medium, the leading traditional bookmakers have been able to fire a shot across the bows of Betfair too. This distortion should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. In the days before the spread firms and the betting exchanges, it was not possible for a non-bookmaker to lay a horse ie to back a horse to lose. This was a very profitable trading strategy which, due to a suitable market infrastructure, was only available to the bookmakers and those with access to the private markets. Nowadays we can all oppose a favourite and this has impacted upon the traditional bookmaker's cartelised control of the industry in Britain to a massive extent. Customers have also been fleeing to the betting exchanges because of the smaller margins and the sheer unprofessionalism of Betfair's role in this affair cannot have been good for company morale nor public perception.
Although the English bookmakers were pleased to have Fallon out of the way, the traditional layers and the wider racing establishment had no interest in helping the Betfair case. Betfair are out of the loop of the inner ring which used to make up the Association of Major Levy Payers and, indeed, are viewed as the enemy from some mid-sized towns beginning with the letter "H". Consequently, with the sense of omerta becoming overbearing, Betfair were forced to fly in a leading Australian steward to gain independent judgement of Fallon's 27 suspect rides. So battle was joined with Betfair's key defence witness having no knowledge nor experience of British horseracing. This is almost as foolhardy as having Mark Shields take charge of the Woolmer inquiry! To further aid the destabilisation of the prosecution case, Mark Manning, the acting detective inspector in charge of the investigation, confessed: "I'm not a gambler and I know nothing about Betfair". Brilliant. After yesterday's collapse of the case, Manning went public with the claim that he might well accept a job with the British Horseracing Authority at the conclusion of the trial. You couldn't make this up! At least his extensive experience will be an asset!!??
A key piece of information in the termination of the trial was the assessment of Timeform's Jim McGrath. It was his personal view that the Ballinger Ridge race (Ballinger Ridge is an alleged Fallon underachiever that allowed co-defendant and professional gambler Miles Rodgers to pocket £27,000 on the winner) required too much judgement to deliberately cheat. Nonsense. I was an excellent reader of races in-running and I know an underachieving horse when I see one. Fallon not only gained eye contact with the fast approaching winner but he continued to hold his horse back for a few further strides before reacting. McGrath is a key cog in the British racing sector. His organisation makes a tidy living out of publicising the fallacy that horseracing results are related to form when, in reality, they are simply correlated with betting market patterns. But McGrath is a very talented and quick-thinking operator - we respect his talents but not his choice of career. When you are a professional in the gambling industry, the reliable and disinformational sources tend to diverge and we confess to being surprised that so much weight was given to one flawed judgement from an industry insider who had no interest in the case proceeding. The law is evidently a bigger ass than Ballinger Ridge!
The case cost £10 million over three and a half years and yet the prosecution case could have been put together on a Friday afternoon by an industry professional - these people evidently do lunch extensively. The financial winners? The traditional bookmakers and the English racing establishment will be feeling smug as their lack of perspective prevents them seeing the damage being done to their little ruse - a short term gain before a longer term fall. The financial losers? All non-professional punters who choose to bet on British horseracing, Betfair, the taxpayer, the credibility of the City of London Police (which will bring a chirpy smile to Harry Redknapp's face), Kieran Fallon and Irish racing.
"From the nags to the hacks, noone wants to blow the whistle" was the perceptive summary of Jon Snow on last night's Channel 4 News programme. And these are the prime issues with British racing. Firstly, corruption is endemic within the "sport". And, secondly, these people have been interbreeding with each other for centuries and they are the establishment. They meet up around the country to give each other prizes and they don't wish for anybody to be poking their proletarian noses in. The bookmakers are equally reclusive. This is a scam at a societal level and it is only correct that this ludicrous singling out of Kieran Fallon and his co-defendants has been be terminated.
A whitewash? Yes. But, a valid whitewash... It is simply a pity that the wigged one wielded his gavel just in time to prevent the jury (and the wider public) seeing the detailed evidence gathered against the defendants.
As I said, you couldn't make it up.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
