Page 9 - December 2008 The Game

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
Fat Tony
The Game, December 2008 9
While I concentrated on my personal challenge of making the transition from apprentice to journeyman, a crisis on a much grander scale was brewing. A series of grand jury investigations involving xed races, drugging and hidden ownership was about to turn the world of horse racing upside down.
He laughed and said I should have taken the offer. We had very little chance of winning at that distance, especially with the speed horses we were up against. Had either of us known the breadth of Fat Tony’s operation and the deadly seriousness with which
he ran his business, we wouldn’t have thought it a laughing matter.
my game old warrior kicked into his usual late gear and ew by them? What would happen if I was in front? For the rst time, I shivered at the prospect of winning.
The mastermind behind the scheme was living in my own backyard. Tony Ciullo, or Fat Tony as he was called, hailed from south Boston. At 6’3, 350 pounds he was well over riding weight but had as much say in who reached the wire rst as any of us jockeys. Ciullo grew up watching the races from behind the Suffolk Downs’
The night before the race, scenarios kept playing through my head. The Heckler was past his racing prime at age nine but he’d been training like a youngster. I could barely hold him back in his morning gallops. What if the speed horses tired and
I remembered a scene similar to this situation on the Police Woman series. The jockey couldn’t hold his mount back and a sniper shot the horse out from under him. Continued Page 10 - see Fat Tony
wire fence, back in the
days when children weren’t allowed on the track. By his teenage years, the aspiring racketeer was xing races on the fair circuit. Soon
he graduated to Suffolk Downs, Lincoln Downs and Narragansett.
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A Series of Real Life Stories by Paddy Head www.paddyhead.ca
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While Fat Tony was making millions with his organized racket, I was trying to build my own meagre bank account. The day after my narrow miss on Tip O Flag, I had the ride on another veteran, The Heckler. I had little expectation of winning in the six furlong race (the Heckler preferred a route) but an unusual encounter put me on the alert.
I was approached by
a man I’d occasionally seen walking hots in an adjacent shed row. He had never spoken to me until the day he made his offer. I suspected he was a drug dealer but that wasn’t what he had in mind. He said he would give me $350 if I made certain The Heckler didn’t win.
I was speechless. My experience at Gansett had brought me into contact with the dishonest side of racing but I never expected to be openly propositioned. I suddenly thought of
my race on Merisier at Naragansett when the jockeys let me win. Did the ma a think it was payback time? Was my name marked in their records? If so, I had to get it erased. No, not erased—I didn’t like the implications of that word. I had to make it clear I wouldn’t deal with them. I told the man I wouldn’t hold this horse or any other.
I shared this encounter with Bobby Venezia, owner and trainer of The Heckler.
The Game December 2008.indd 9
11/27/08
2:57:27 AM