Triple Crown (7 page)

‘OK,’ he said with a resigned sigh. ‘I’ll use the small copier in my PA’s office.’

As far as I was concerned no precaution was too minor to be ignored. In my experience, it was usually the accumulation of small clues that added up to create the big picture rather than any
single dramatic revelation. The fewer traces we generated regarding the true purpose of my visit the better.

‘I also need account details for all the racing section staff, preferably recent bank statements. Whoever is leaking information may be being paid for it. If so, we need to find those
deposits.’

‘That’ll need court subpoenas,’ Tony said.

‘Then get them. But will the staff then know their statements are being looked at?’

‘They shouldn’t. I’ll deal with it personally and the banks will get the subpoenas, not the staff. The need for discretion will be emphasised.’

‘Good.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want to go to the Kentucky Derby this Saturday. Frank Bannister told me the whole racing section is going to Louisville on Wednesday. Can you fix it so that I
go with them?’

‘Absolutely,’ Tony said. ‘The operation we were discussing today will be executed at Churchill Downs this coming weekend. I’ll ensure you are included on the
flight.’

‘Carefully,’ I said. ‘You don’t know me, remember.’

‘I’ll have a quiet word with Norman Gibson.’

‘He’s not in the loop,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer it to remain that way.’

‘Don’t you trust Norman?’

‘I trust nobody to keep a secret that my life might depend on.’ Not even you, I thought, but I decided not to say so.

The package from Tony arrived at nine o’clock as I was again studying the FACSA personnel files.

Out of curiosity, I had looked up Tony Andretti’s own record.

He was 64 years old, having been born on Staten Island, New York, in the 1950s. He was not named Anthony, as I had assumed, but Antonio after his Italian father, and he was married with three
grown-up sons. He and his wife Harriet now lived in Fairfax, Virginia, a few miles away from his office.

He had joined FACSA as a special agent direct from the NYPD when the agency had been first established. He had worked his way up through section chief to assistant director in charge of
administration, and then finally to Deputy Director three years previously.

He had reached the pinnacle of his career. Simple research on the Internet showed that the Director was a political appointee, determined by the US President and, as with the FBI, the position
was invariably awarded to someone outside the organisation.

Tony would not get to be Director.

I opened the package. It contained details of an operation to raid a trainer’s barn at Churchill Downs to check for the improper use of medications in horses.

Unlike in the United Kingdom, where horses were trained ‘at home’ and then only taken to a racecourse by horsebox on the day of their race, racehorses in the US were trained at the
track, living in barns on what was known as the backside or backstretch. Each individual trainer had a barn and there were accommodation blocks for the grooms.

The main reason for the difference lay in the way races were scheduled and that, in turn, was largely due to the differing surfaces on which the horses competed.

In the UK, the vast majority of races were run on turf rather than on dirt whereas in the States it was the reverse. Dirt tracks could take far more use than turf as they didn’t cut up and
were simply harrowed back into pristine condition after each race.

Consider Santa Anita Park, one of the major tracks in California. During the first six months of each year, there were eight, nine or even ten races a day on four days of every week. That was
nearly nine hundred races in only half a year.

Compare that to Newbury racecourse, one of the busiest tracks in the UK, where twenty-nine days’ racing were spread evenly across all twelve months. With seven races each time, at Newbury
there were far less than a quarter of the races of Santa Anita over twice the time.

But the real difference was that the Santa Anita backside barns were also home to some two thousand racehorses that were also exercised on the dirt track every day. No turf racecourse could
stand up to such punishment.

I read through the paperwork for the proposed raid and the details were surprising to say the least –
horrifying
might be a better word.

I was familiar with the British regulatory structure that had a simple but all-embracing rule in relation to drugs being present in a horse during a race – they
aren’t allowed and, if detected, severe penalties would follow.

In addition, certain substances were not permitted to be introduced into a horse’s system at any time. They included all anabolic steroids, hormones, and any metabolic moderators such as
insulin.

Reading one of the background briefing papers for the Churchill Downs raid, it became very clear to me that the situation in the United States was very different.

Anyone connected with racing worldwide was well aware of the widespread use in America of the drug furosemide, sold under the trade names Lasix or Salix. It is a potent diuretic and is used in
horses to prevent bleeding in the lungs under extreme exertion, a condition known as EIPH, exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage. Whether they actually need it or not, almost every horse that
races in North America has 500mg of the drug injected intravenously four hours before they race.

The diuretic effect is dramatic, with the horse producing ten to fifteen litres of urine in the first hour after administration of the drug. This in itself has a two-fold effect. First, it makes
the horse ten to fifteen kilogrammes lighter, and second, it tends to flush out of the animal’s system any other drugs, which then become impossible to detect in a post-race dope test.

And, boy, according to what I was reading, there were plenty of other drugs.

American racing was seemingly rife with them, and most were allowed by the various state rules, even though there were attempts to reduce the dependence.

In some states, the administration of any legal medication was permitted up to twenty-four hours before a race, while in others the period could vary from a few days to a few weeks before
racing.

A particularly worrying aspect of drugs in American racing was the widespread use of anti-inflammatory and painkilling medication such as phenylbutazone, known as ‘Bute’, which was
often administered intravenously, allowing a horse to race when otherwise it would be unable to do so.

In the UK, the racing authority warned trainers that such painkillers should be discontinued a minimum of eight days prior to a race. In practice, most trainers stopped any course of treatment
at least two weeks beforehand so that no trace remained. Otherwise they would be liable to large fines and lengthy suspensions. However, in the US, use of such drugs right up to race day was
common, and a ‘positive’ post-race test for Bute was not against the rules.

According to the briefing paper, the disturbing effect of this was that the drugs allowed horses to compete when really unfit to do so, masking injuries such as sprains and even slight cracks.
This could result in catastrophic collapse, an all-too-frequent occurrence on American tracks, where the rate of horses fatally injured in flat races was twice that of the UK.

However, the purpose of the proposed raid at Churchill Downs was not to look for Lasix or Bute. Finding those would be expected. It was to test recent runners for anabolic steroids, in
particular stanozolol, a drug that promotes growth of muscle and hence improves performance.

I knew all about that drug.

Back in 2013, the BHA had expelled trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni from all racing for eight years for giving it to horses in his care. And the discovery of stanozolol in his urine had been the
reason Ben Johnson was stripped of the hundred-metre Olympic gold medal in Seoul, bringing disgrace on him and his sport.

In UK racing the rule was crystal clear. Anabolic steroids were banned in horses at any time. But in the United States things were not so straightforward. Their use had not been regulated at all
until 2010 and, even since then, several anabolic steroids were permitted for therapeutic treatment up to thirty days before racing.

But, it seems, some old trainers found it difficult to learn new tricks.

FACSA had received intelligence that one such trainer, Hayden Ryder, based at Churchill Downs, was still using the methods of the past and injecting his horses much closer to race time than was
permitted, relying on a hefty dose of Lasix on race day to wash traces of the illegals out of their system.

And who could really blame him. The potential gains were huge and typical penalties for getting caught very modest – a fifteen-day ban and a maximum fine of one thousand dollars.

The date of the raid was set for very early on the coming Saturday morning, the day of the Kentucky Derby, the aim being not so much to remove a miscreant trainer from the sport as to get
maximum media coverage to demonstrate that horseracing will not tolerate cheating.

It was to be a major media moment.

Today was Monday. The raid was due in five days. That would give Ryder plenty of time to get rid of the evidence if he was made aware of what was going to happen. It might even give him the
opportunity to arrange transportation of horses elsewhere to prevent them from being tested.

I read through everything in the package twice, including Tony’s handwritten list of those present at the planning meeting.

I recognised most of the names. Section chief Norman Gibson was on the list, as was Frank Bannister, together with the other seven FACSA special agents I had met earlier in the day. In addition
there were two others from the section: one of the intelligence analysts plus an admin assistant.

Tony had told me he had been present at the meeting but there had been two other senior agency staff there as well – the head of the resource planning office, and the assistant director in
charge of security.

Would one of these fourteen people really pass on information to Hayden Ryder?

And, if so, why? For what gain?

‘Bring the op forward,’ I said. ‘Do it tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.’

It was late, well gone eleven, and I was speaking to Tony using our non-smart phones. I think I had woken him.

‘That’s logistically impossible,’ he said, suppressing a yawn.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Our raid team is still here in Virginia.’

‘Have you no one in Louisville?’

‘The nearest FACSA regional office would be Cincinnati, but that’s concerned only with baseball and football. We also have one in Indianapolis but they deal with the NCAA.’

‘NCAA?’ I asked.

‘College sports – sadly, no horseracing.’

‘You surely don’t get much corruption in college sports?’

‘You must be joking,’ Tony said. ‘It’s huge business. College football has three times as many spectators per annum as the NFL.’

‘There must be someone else in Louisville who could act for you,’ I said. ‘How about the FBI?’

I could almost hear the cogs turning in his brain.

‘Difficult, if not impossible,’ he said. ‘Use of anabolic steroids in horses close to a race may be a corrupt practice, as we see it, but does it actually break any federal
law? The FBI would be unable to act unless they also suspected racketeering, such as making or taking illegal bets as a result of the steroid injections. And they would be most unlikely to mount a
raid so quickly just on our say-so anyway.’

‘Then get the FACSA team from here to Louisville tonight. Do the raid in the morning. If details of this operation are leaked to Hayden Ryder then you can expect to turn up at his barn on
Saturday morning to find the place cleaner than a priest on Sunday. You’ll find nothing. Even the drugged-up horses will have been moved out. Rather than being a media coup for FACSA, it will
be a media disaster. You will be a laughing stock.’

There was a lengthy silence as if he had never considered the possibility.

‘Tell me what to do,’ he said finally.

In the end, Tony convinced me that he couldn’t rouse the troops from their beds and arrange for them to be transported more than 450 miles in the dead of night.

‘The raid is simply not important enough,’ Tony said. ‘I’d never get the authority for the cost. It is not as if the President’s life is at stake or anything.
It’s only a few drugs.’

Yes, I thought, and drugs that weren’t even illegal. Maybe if it had been a stash of cocaine or heroin, I’d have had more chance, but anabolic steroids occurred naturally in the
human body and were regularly prescribed to thousands of citizens for the treatment of cancer and AIDS.

‘I’ll try to bring forward the move to Louisville from Wednesday to tomorrow,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll also arrange to do the raid on Thursday morning.’

‘Do it on Wednesday morning,’ I said. ‘The sooner the better. And don’t tell anyone.’

‘I’ll have to tell them something. Everyone is expecting to be travelling on Wednesday.’

‘Make up a reason,’ I said. ‘Say that flights are full on Wednesday so they have to go earlier.’

‘We’re due to travel on a government-owned aircraft out of Andrews.’

‘Air Force One?’

‘I wish,’ Tony said with a laugh. ‘Just a regular jet. I’ll have to check if it’s available tomorrow.’

‘If not, get them onto commercial flights. Say the government plane has broken or something, but don’t say anything about moving the raid forward. Say you need to gather them
together for a rehearsal or something on Wednesday morning then, at the last minute, switch it for the real thing when it’s too late for the information to be leaked.’

‘I ought to discuss this with someone. For a start I would have to inform the US Department of Agriculture.’

‘What on earth for? Don’t you have the authority yourself?’

‘It is not that,’ Tony said. ‘USDA provides the accredited veterinarians we need to take the blood samples. Also I have to liaise with the local Kentucky law enforcement.
They’re expecting us to go in on Saturday, not Wednesday. I don’t want to start a shooting match between our agents and the Louisville Police Department.’