Horse Racing: Exchange Punter Risked £1m in Corruption Case

The Horseracing Regulatory Authority said yesterday that there "is nothing to unduly concern us or anything that would effect the case starting or progressing" after a newspaper published details of interviews by security officials with five licensed individuals who will face serious corruption charges at the HRA's headquarters next month.

Phil McEntee, a Newmarket trainer, and the jockeys Shane Kelly, David Nolan, Josh Byrne and Fran Ferris, are all due to appear in London on March 19 for a hearing in front of the HRA disciplinary committee which is scheduled to last for two weeks. All five are accused of passing inside information about rides or runners to Ajaz Khan, a financial advisor and punter who was warned off for three years by the racing authorities in July 2006 after he failed to provide phone records to an inquiry into his betting activities.

Yesterday's report contained detailed accounts of some of Khan's bets on the Betfair betting exchange, where he would often risk significant sums for a relatively small return. In all, it is alleged that he risked more than £1m on a total of 40 races, in order to win £102,500.

Khan is thought to have used Betfair accounts in the name of half a dozen other individuals in order to place his bets and attempt to cover his tracks. However, sophisticated software employed by the exchange to analyse their markets detected clear links between the accounts and the horses that were being laid in their name, information which was then passed to the HRA's security department. The horses involved were then linked to McEntee and the four jockeys.

Analysis of mobile phone records of the individuals concerned show over 430 calls between McEntee and Khan over a five-month period, with the frequency of the contact often rising when McEntee saddled a runner that Khan and his associates are then alleged to have laid on Betfair.

According to transcripts of interviews between HRA investigators and the five licensed individuals who were subsequently charged, their defence is expected to be that they were unaware that Khan was using information that they provided in order to place bets on the exchange. McEntee is said to have told investigators that "lots of people ring me up every day when we've got runners. I wasn't discussing how much profit he made from laying my horses. I had no idea that he was laying my horses."

Paul Struthers, the HRA's public relations manager, said yesterday that any individual charged with a serious offence by the authority will receive full details of the evidence against them, including transcripts of interviews, in order to allow them to prepare their defence.

"Clearly it would be an issue if this evidence was misused in any way, but how the newspaper got hold of some of the evidence in this case is not an issue that overly concerns us."

Ferris, one of the jockeys involved, was given a curfew order yesterday by Bury St Edmunds magistrates in a separate case involving an assault charge at a Newmarket nightclub last September.

The names in the dock in the latest racing scandal


Phil McEntee Newmarket trainer

Sent out one winner so far in 2007

Shane Kelly Top 20 rider

Rode 58 winners last year

Fran Ferris Banned jockey

In court yesterday on separate charges

David Nolan Successful apprentice rider

Based in Midlands with trainer Ian Williams

Josh Byrne Jump jockey

Struggled here and said to be in Ireland