HORSE racing was last night facing demands to clean up its act after a TV investigation accused the sport of being "institutionally corrupt" and having links with organised crime.

Racing pundits predict the BBC Panorama documentary, to be screened tomorrow, will force changes in the way the sport is run.

Channel 4's John McCririck said: "For the general public it is going to be a bombshell."

But the Jockey Club, which runs horse racing in Britain, last night dismissed the programme as "a bit of fluff".

Panorama's long-awaited documentary on the racing industry alleges a "whole generation" of jockeys had links with organised crime and accepted cash payments.

The claims come from the former head of security at the Jockey Club, Roger Buffham.

He said that there was no will at the racing body to pursue the riders involved, telling the programme: "I presented reports on (one jockey) on at least three occasions. But there was not sufficient resolve or robustness to deal with him."

Panorama questions the Jockey Club's effectiveness as the governing body and official regulator of the sport.

The six-month investigation also includes an interview with ex-jockey Dermot Browne, who claims to have doped "about 27 horses" in 1990.

Browne said he was working for Brian Wright - who has been widely linked to the world of horse racing and is alleged to have masterminded a huge international drugs operation. He is still the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Browne claimed that jockeys were on the payroll of Wright, naming two riders who had, he claimed, received cash in exchange for passing on information.

The programme claims jockeys were offered cash, cocaine and prostitutes to fix races for Wright.

Former champion jump jockey Peter Scudamore said he was looking forward to watching the programme tomorrow.

He said: "I think it will change things. It's made racing sit up and think. It's not leaving the rulers of racing in a very good light."

But he added: "I rode through that era and I never suspected anything.

"I'm not saying racing is whiter than white, but if it was institutionally corrupt I think I would have known."

Races that shamed the Sport of Kings

Racing's seedier side will be revealed tomorrow when the BBC's Panorama programme screens its inquiry into the sport in The Corruption of Racing. But skulduggery has always played its part in racing's colourful tapestry. Here we look back on some of the most amazing scandals, starting with one where the trail led to North Yorkshire. Steve Parsley reports.

ONE of the most daring swindles in racing history so nearly paid off for millionaire businessman Ken Richardson.

In a plot which could have graced the pages of a Dick Francis novel, a horse he owned called Flockton Grey was entered in the Knighton Auction Stakes at Leicester in 1982 and won by 20 lengths.

With his horse romping home at 10-1, Richardson stood to make £36,000 while bookies faced losses estimated at £200,000.

However, Flockton Grey's extraordinary performance raised immediate suspicions which were compounded when the horse vanished straight after the race.

Its absence hindered a steward's inquiry but photographs were used in a subsequent investigation which concluded the horse which crossed the finishing line that day had been a "ringer''.

Its true identity was an almost identical three-year-old owned by Richardson, named Good Hand - found later in a remote field on the North York Moors.

At the time, Richardson - who was living at Hutton on Humberside - claimed the mix-up was trainer Stephen Wiles's fault and it had not been planned in advance.

But, in 1984, Richardson appeared at York Crown Court with associate Colin Mathison and horse-box driver, Peter Boddy, facing charges of conspiring to defraud.

Boddy was given a 12-month conditional discharge and Mathison a £3,000 fine.

The stiffest sentence was reserved for Richardson, who was fined £20,000 and banned from racecourses in the UK for 25 years by the Jockey Club.

In 1996, Richardson took another gamble when he took his case to the Court of Appeal, claiming fresh evidence suggested his conviction was unsafe.

However, the case was rejected and Richardson was ordered to pay £50,000 costs.

Richardson was subsequently jailed in 1999 for his part in an arson attack on Doncaster Rovers Football Club's ground.

Now living on the Isle of Man, he was convicted of hiring a private detective to set fire to the stands at Belle Vue in the hope it would speed up plans for a new stadium.

Others saddled with disgrace

RUNNING REIN: In the mid-19th Century, Lord George Bentinck waged a private war on the "dishonest scoundrels" threatening to destroy the sport. The landmark in his campaign was his revelation that a four-year-old horse, Running Rein, had won the 1844 Derby, a race for three-year-olds only.

TRODMORE HUNT: The card for the Trodmore Hunt meeting was printed in the The Sportsman on August 1, 1898. The editor was asked to list the runners and riders and several bookmakers took bets on the "meeting" and the "results" were published the following day. Winning bets were paid but an inquiry proved there was no such place as Trodmore and no meeting had taken place.

FRANCASAL: Five men stood to make the modern equivalent of £1m at Bath Races in 1953. Conspirators replaced a moderate French horse, Francasal, with a better horse called Santa Amaro. The horse won at 10-1 and telephone lines to Bath were cut to stop news of huge bets reaching the course. The subterfuge was discovered and those involved were found guilty of fraud.

GAY FUTURE: Permit trainer Anthony Collins declared Gay Future to run at Cartmel in August 1974. That morning, nationwide bets were placed in doubles and trebles with two other Collins-trained runners, Opera Cloak and Ankerwyke. Gay Future won by 15 lengths at 10-1, but the other horses were declared non-runners - they had not even left for the courses. The perpetrators were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud.

IN THE MONEY: In The Money won by 20 lengths at Newton Abbot in August 1978 at a well-backed 8-1. By the time investigators reached trainer John Bowles' yard, In The Money had been destroyed due to "lameness". The actual winner turned out to be Cobbler's March, a five-times winner. Bowles had bought the horse in 1977 and the trainer claimed it had died of a twisted gut and been fed to dogs and pigs. He was jailed for 18 months.

ANGEL 'JACOBS': An amateur jockey called Angel 'Jacobs' wowed the amateur ranks with his polished riding during the 1998 season. 'Jacobs' was eventually unmasked as a former professional called Angel Monserrate who had been banned for drug-taking in the US and exposed after riding in New York as an amateur called 'Carlos Castro'. He received a ten-year worldwide ban.

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