Fine Cotton’s race stopped the nation for all the wrong reasons
The horse was orange but needed to be dark brown to fool the stewards and that was just the start of the Fine Cotton fiasco
Today in History
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The horse, Bold Personality, was meant to be brown but instead now looked a bright shade of orange becauise of the dye used by trainer Hayden Haitana to try to darken the animal’s coat. His aim was to make Bold Personality look more like Fine Cotton, the horse it was going to illegally replace in a race at Eagle Farm racecourse in Brisbane. Along with his partners in the deception, horse breeder, conman and mastermind of the scheme, John “The Phantom” Gillespie, and socialite Bobby North, Haitana took the horse to North’s home to try to wash the dye out.
He also added white socks with a can of spray paint and, deciding the once orange beast now looked more like Fine Cotton, at least enough to fool the stewards, the trio headed off to the racecourse.
In its disguise, Bold Personality won the race, on August 18, 1984, 35 years ago this week. But, not surprisingly, the subterfuge was quickly discovered and Fine Cotton became one of the most famous racehorses in Australian history not for being a great racer but for being the pawn in a ring-in plan that went spectacularly wrong.
The story is retold in new book The Fine Cotton Fiasco, by Peter Hoysted and Pat Sheil, (Ebury $34.99) in bookstores tomorrow.
The plan was hatched by Gillespie in Boggo Road Gaol, after he met Haitana’s brother Pat, a jockey
serving time for “kite flying”, criminal parlance for passing bad cheques. Gillespie discovered Haitana’s brother Hayden was a licensed trainer and decided to have another go at a scam he had tried before.
Back in 1982 Gillespie had arranged for the horse Apparent Heir to be substituted for Mannasong at Doomben. The problem was that Apparent Heir didn’t win the race and lots of people lost money. Somehow Gillespie avoided prosecution for the scam, which was encouragement enough for him to try again. After his release from prison in March 1984, he started putting together his plan. He tipped off mobster Mick Sayers, to get underworld backing for the scheme. Sayers owed money to crime boss George Freeman, which meant the conspiracy spread even further.
Gillespie then bought a dark brown sprinter named Dashing Solitaire and put part-time trainer Wendy Smith to work getting it ready to race at Eagle
Farm in August. Two weeks later he bought another horse, an eight-year-old retired nag named Fine Cotton, which was a very close match to Dashing Solitaire. Fine Cotton was trained by Haitana and run in as many races as possible in the lead up to the ring-in scam.
But days before the race Dashing Solitaire was spooked by kangaroos and injured itself on a barbed wire fence. There was no way it would be well enough to run.
But the plan had gone too far now. The conspirators were unable to back out. Haitana argued he could get Fine Cotton to win the race using amphetamines, otherwise known as a “speed bomb.” But Gillespie insisted on using another horse, Bold Personality. Haitana pointed out the flaw in the plan “It’s the wrong f...in’ colour. Fine Cotton is almost black. Bold Personality is brown …”
Regardless, Bold Personality was quickly trucked up from Coffs Harbour, but was in a shocking state and needed to be rehydrated, which resulted in a nose bleed. The poor animal then suffered the indignity of being given a dye job using women’s hair dye. It may have been a great product for women but it turned the horse’s hair orange. With just hours before the race the men hosed the animal horse down, spray paint the white leg markings and raced it out to the track.
News had gotten around criminal circles that Fine Cotton was a sure thing, causing a huge betting plunge before the race. Even the corrupt Queensland Police Commissioner Terence Lewis sent his mother
down to the track to put a bet on the horse. As the odds shortened bookies became suspicious.
When the horse purporting to be Fine Cotton beat the favourite Harbour Gold by a nose, stewards also became suspicious and stopped winnings being paid to punters. Evidence of the dye job and the paint dripping down its legs led to Harbour Gold being declared the winner.
Gillespie and Haitana served prison time for the fraud and along with several others both were banned for life from racecourses. Haitana later had his ban lifted and he died in 2017. Gillespie later claimed he won $1.8 million betting on Harbour Gold.