Page 14 - February 2009 The Game

14 The Game, February 2009
Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
No Book No Movie
It would be several years before I would learn about the breadth and scope of the race xing scam. The ‘arrangement’ during The Heckler’s sprint was not an isolated occurrence. Anthony Ciulla, a south Boston native, began his racketeering as a teenager on the New England fair circuit. His business spread as exponentially as his girth. The adult Fat Tony (weighing
By the age of 26, Ciulla was barred from 55 tracks by the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau. His rst brush with authorities was when one of his unkies, Bobby Byrne, was caught climbing a fence at Suffolk Downs with hypodermic needles and syringes. This resulted in barely a slap on the wrist for Ciulla mainly because of his alliance with the notorious Irish ma a of South Boston, the Winter Hill gang. The TRPB thought Tony was a one- man operation but the FBI were wise to Fat Tony’s off track system. Over a period of several years, they watched him and patiently collected evidence.
Michael Hole, a successful jockey on the New York circuit who reputedly turned down several offers, was found asphyxiated in his car on April 22 1976. His death was reported
A Head at the Wire
A Series of Real Life Stories by Paddy Head
in at 320 pounds) xed races at 39 racetracks across the United States, including the Big Apple. (Apparently he wasn’t able to crack the California circuit.)
as suicide and was never seriously investigated. (His son, Taylor Hole, is a top jockey on the New England circuit and had his rst New York victory at Aqueduct in 2008)
Tony’s racket began to unravel on July 4, 1975. Peter Fantini, a jockey riding at Atlantic City, jerked the reins so hard when he broke from the gate his mount reared high in the air. (In this case, the gate handler was innocent.)The New Jersey stewards called Fantini in and the jockey cracked under questioning. He told them about the man he knew simply as Tony and how he operated from the nearby Flamingo Motel. To save his own skin, Fantini agreed to help the FBI in their investigation and wear a wire tap to his next meeting with Ciulla. Fantini played his role beautifully, getting Ciulla to talk about methods of holding a horse and revealing which riders and trainers would accept a bribe.
The FBI had their incriminating evidence but Fat Tony was no longer in Atlantic City. He had set out to conquer new territory and took several of his secretly owned horses to Bay Meadows. When he was barely settled in, he received a tip that the FBI had him under surveillance. He thought it prudent to go home and hide out till
it all cooled down. But when he tried to board a United Airlines ight, ten dark suited agents leaped up from their chairs in the waiting room and drew their pistols. Anthony Ciulla’s business was of cially closed.
Downs wouldn’t hold. (I know one of them personally.) Sometimes, a rider couldn’t deliver. Ciulla cited a race at Garden State when a jockey named Kallai lost his hold on his mount, Way To Reason. He called to the rider beside him, Ralph Baker, to hit the horse in the face but even this didn’t stop the horse.
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Not all jockeys who refused Ciulla’s offer were as fortunate as I had been.
A ve year sentence was looming in the Rhode Island prison after Tony had served his time in the New Jersey cell. This prospect made him very nervous as he was familiar with the ma a’s appetite for vengeance. An offer was made. If Ciulla would testify in grand jury proceedings, his Atlantic City sentence would be reduced to
Ciulla was returned to Atlantic City where Fantini’s testimony put him behind bars with a sentence of four
to six years. FBI agents were busy developing cases in several other states where witnesses came forward, usually not voluntarily, and gave testimony.
Ciulla explained how he
had developed his system by experimenting with horses he secretly owned. He had the exercise riders use a battery on the horses
in the mornings but only one horse responded favourably to the electrical device, a colt named Robert Kope. Tony decided betting on one horse to win was too risky. He then focused on stopping the favourites and boxing longer shots in a perfecta or trifecta. An $18 box ticket could return a shopping basket full of money.
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20 months and the other state charges would be dropped. He would then
be placed under the Federal Witness Program.
Trainer Johnny Campo was called onto the stand and asked why he sold horses to Ciulla knowing they would be placed under “straws”, or secret owners. One of these horses was a well bred colt named Eligible, who was entered in a race at Sportman’s Park . He was the heavy favourite and Ciulla had the jockey hold him so he could
When Fat Tony began to sing, he made Pavarotti sound like an amateur. He named jockeys from the leaky roof circuit to the Big A. He reported that a small number of the hard-up riders at Rockingham and Suffolk
collect a bundle on the longer shots in the perfecta. It was never established whether Campo knew the horses would be used to x races.
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Fat Tony promised to write a book so a movie would be made
of his exploits
but the literary process turned out to be harder for him than xing races. In 2003, Tony Capra, as he was then known, died of a heart attack in Revere, Massachusetts.
No book, no movie, but Fat Tony isn’t completely forgotten.
The Game February 2009.indd
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