Do Go On - The Fine Cotton Scandal - Do Go On Mini

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

It was one of the most controversial events in Australian horse racing history: involving an impostor horse, a record betting plunge and a motley crew of colourful racing identities. This week we are talking about the Fine Cotton Scandal!This is the podcast version of episode three of our new web series that we made with Stupid Old Studios. You can watch the video of the episode complete with animations, props and lots and lots of regret face right now on The Stupid Old Channel YouTube page (link below).Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aPz94Ohvuv4 Subscribe for more episodes.Our website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hey team, just Dave here with Matt and Jess. Hello.

Hello. We are just dropping into your feed midweek to tell you that what you're about to hear is a little bonus mini episode, if you will. I will. Can I call it a Minnesota? Oh, I love that. Minnesota. Oh, you're about to hear a certain Minnesota. And this is the audio taken from episode three of our web series that you can watch for free right now on the the stupid old YouTube channel, which we will link in the description of this episode. And it definitely

works as a podcast, just like all our other episodes. But if you want to see it in its full glory, four D's, full high definition, our faces, a library, some animations, some sound effects. Yep. And some Dave. Yes. You get to see the fourth D. The fourth D stands for Dave. You can click the link in the description of this episode. But otherwise, you can just hear the audio of it and definitely works as a podcast. And Matt, what are we about to hear this week? It's all about the darkest day in Australian racing, the fine cotton scandal. It's a pretty wild story. It's a wild ride. We probably didn't need to say anymore because we're about to tell you all about it in this episode. Yeah, totally. So check it out along with all our other episodes that we've put up on the

stupid old YouTube channel. But apart from that, sit back and enjoy. It was one of the most controversial events in Australian horse racing history involving an imposter horse, a record betting plunge and a motley crew of colourful racing identities. This week, I'm talking about the fine cotton scandal. Hi, I'm Matt Stewart. This is Jess Perkins. That is David Hornicky. Hello.

Hey, thanks so much for joining me in my bedroom. Thank you. You don't have a bed? No, no. never sleep. Or if I do, I do it sitting and reading. So if I'm not off, please poke me with a stick today. You excited about this? I'm so excited. Are you familiar? I love a scandal. Great. You know, I love drama. Yes. I love gossip. Yes. I love. Tick, tick, talk. Can I just say that I love cotton. So what kind of cotton? Whatever this is. Fine cotton. Well done. Thank you. So. So,

Let me take you back. Please. Are you hypnotising us? Yeah. I'm just telling you a story. I'm telling you a story in hypnotic form. Cool. On the 18th of August, 1984, a good year.

The second novice handicap was run at the Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane, Australia. The following day, the newspapers would call this racing's darkest day. Oh, was it a bit cloudy? It was very overcast. Oh, no. Couldn't see who won't. Yeah. It was a race where only horse.

who had limited to no success were eligible. And even amongst this ordinary company, a horse named Fine Cotton was a rank outsider. So it's a horse race for losers. Yeah. Oh, it's like a participation award for horse racing. Yeah, there's like lots of levels. So you know the group ones, like the big race at Melbourne Cups and stuff,

and then it goes all the way down. There's levels for full on battlers. But what's to stop me from pretending to be shit? And then on race day, oh, I'm far lap. I think you can do that once, but as soon as you've had it, like there's maidens, or races that only horses and never won can enter. So you can do that once, I guess.

But you'd have to pretend to suck for a while. I mean, that's actually been my plan, my whole life. But then what's the prestige of winning the race for losers? Winning? Good point. That's a good point. It's a good point. Well made.

Rather win the race for losers than lose the race for winners. Yeah. Okay. That is your kind of vibe. Yeah. So Fine Cotton was born on the 29th of November, 1976. He was a veteran racehorse and a genuine battler. In its 70 career starts, it had only won twice.

In its previous race, it came 10th in a field of 12. Okay. That's top 10. It had some wins and some dud races, but two out of 70s. Not great. Not great. And I'm no mathematician. I'm not really into horse racing,

but I don't think that's good. Yeah, you're right. I believe. I took a punt there. I used to be, hey, good start. I used to be riding a horse racing. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you lost everything. I lost everything. My house, my car, my friends, my face. Yep. Had to get a new one. Had to get a new face. And that's what you chose. Crazy.

I didn't have a big budget. How much that face put you back? Well, in 1983. Yeah. 78 cents. Oof. But today, that's four or five bucks. Yeah.

So, no regrets. Yeah, fair enough. When the betting opened, it had odds of 33 to 1. This is fine cotton. Meaning for every dollar you bet on it, you'd win 33 back if it got up. Whereas the favourite, Harbour gold was the short price favourite. I think if you put a dollar on it, you might not even double your money. Oh, right.

Harbour gold. Harbour gold. That's a good name. It's a good name. I've been on that one. My favourite horse name ever is hoof-hearted. I don't get it. Like the horses hoof.

Okay. And it's heart. But it sounds like hoof-hearted. Oh, it's like one of those double-meaning things. Yeah, yeah. And it's better when you explain it too. Yeah, I agree. Because I didn't get it before.

And then when I got it, after you explained it, it was better. You're welcome. So much money was bet on fine cotton, though, that by race time, it's price. and short until around 4 to 1. So it'd come in from 33 to 1 to 4 to 1 in the matter of a few hours. While the favourite harbour gold drifted out to 5 to 1.

So now fine cotton's the favourite harbour gold's moved in the second favourite. Punders were backing fine cotton so heavily it was almost as if it was a different horse. Because it was. We're a big fan of the phrase, it was a different time. Yeah.

But I much prefer the phrase, it was a different horse. What you've got to want to understand is. It was a different horse. Okay. Yes, my grandfather said some problematic things. It was a different horse. This wasn't a pre-9-11 horse. Quite literally. They grew up in a different horse. Do you want to know what this story is? Are you intrigued? I'm very intrigued. You're saying it's not, it's changed odds like it was a different horse because it was a different horse. I'm fascinated to see how the logistics. Yeah, I don't know what that means, but I like it.

Yeah. So we're going to go back to around a month prior where this scam originated. It was a scam, by the way. It wasn't just like, spoilers. It didn't somehow morph into a different horse. Humans made this so. Humans morphed it into a different horse. Yes.

Are we capable of that? Yeah, we are. If we believe in ourselves. We have the technology. That's my main takeaway message today. Believe in yourselves. We can change horses. Full stop.

The scam was a little. organized by a syndicate of colourful racing identities, all of whom are said to have loved a beer. Okay. I mean, if you didn't love beer, were they not let you into the scam? Yeah. Test number one. Drink this beer.

No, I'm really more of a red wine kind of guy. Get out. Get her out. Next. Get out. The group was made up of its leader, John Gillespie, a small-time criminal who'd been in and out of jail throughout his life. There was also Robert North, the son of a wealthy Brisbane socialite.

And he was also worked in real estate and also making up the trio, a horse trainer and likable lad named Hayden Heytana. It's a pretty sweet name. Hayden Haytana. Hayden, haytana. Oh, I love that. Haytana. Hittana. Fine cotton was picked.

Hayden. Haytana. You know, like that. Really jumps out of you. Yeah, he does. Yeah. That's how he trained his horses. Yeah.

Spook. His horses would be like trot along. He! And they're like. And they'd run faster. That's how horses would run. On their hind legs. Fine cotton was purchased by the group for $1,000,

which was very cheap because it sucked. And it had already sucked, you know, it'd already been racing for a million years. Yeah, $1,000 is cheap for a horse, isn't it? Yeah. It doesn't matter what kind of horse you're living in. It doesn't matter what. A thousand bucks.

It's confusing now. A thousand bucks is cheap for a horse. How does a horse go for? A thousand bucks. It's the only horse I've ever known. Well, I don't know anybody who owns a horse. Really? And you grew up in the Afonese.

I assumed you all had your own horse. No, we lived in the suburbs. We didn't have fields, paddocks. I would have thought you had property, acreage. Father, shall we go visit the horse this weekend? No, I didn't have a horse. Thanks for bringing it out. I asked it for Christmas.

I had seven ponies. I just wanted one full horse Seven half horse Doesn't add up Dad kept saying it did but it didn't It doesn't Seven ponies does not make as a horse dad That's what I'd say

That's what I always said to him So they bought fine cotton for a grand But they also had another horse Named Dashing Salterre That cost 10 times that amount Did they? 10,000? Yes

Oh God, thank God you all I mean tick tick What you didn't know is we edited out Five minutes there where I went out, did the sums, and I'm back. 10,000. We called a mathematician. Brent, can you confirm?

Brent, just confirm. Brent. Brent is our resident. We got him on retainer. Hello, Brent. He's our mathematician. If you were to guess who dashing Sauter might have looked like as a horse, who would you guess?

File app. Mr. Ed? Fine cotton, an absolute dead ringer. They looked identical. Apparently you couldn't pick them apart. What are the chances? So how would they know who was who? Did they put a bow on one of them?

They put a bow on one. You know, some people, when they have identical twins and they, like, paint the toenails of one of them when they're little babies, so they can tell the difference. Did they paint their toenails? Actually, that's pretty, that does. Something like that happens later, yes. Pretty much, it does.

I'm a genius. The two horses looked identical, but as runners, they were nothing alike. Dashing Saltale is a much more talented runner and had form that would have ruled it ineligible for a race like the second novice handicapped at Eagle Farm. Second novice handicapped. You're cheating at the second novice handicap. What are you doing?

But that's what the syndicate plan. Dashing Salterre was going to run as fine cotton, allowing them to back their horse at high odds and make a small fortune. So it's not about winning the prize money. It's about betting on their own horse. Betting on a horse that's going to have odds of like 33 to 1, knowing that it should have much better odds. Yeah, right. Put a grand on. How much you get?

How much you get? Let me call Brent. Get Brent on the fine. And we're back, 33,000. To ensure fine cotton was paying a big price In the month leading up to the race They overworked it on the track And ran it in other races

Something like nine races in 30 days That's too many races So it's like yeah Like full animal cruelty stuff If I work nine days in a month I am exhausted You know what I mean Which you do nearly every month

Oh god Or you mean precisely nine days Precisely nine 10, 11 fine No no no Any more than nine Really I'm a wreck

I need a month off So I work month on month off. You're a FIFO. Yeah, comedian. Radio post slash comedian. I'm a FIFO comedian. You've got to look after yourself, you know. Oh, you do.

Nine days. Oh my goodness. When do you sleep? Unbelievable. Nighttime? Was that? Oh, sorry, I thought you were asking me a question. Nighttime.

You last, when I sleep. With each poor run, its price would get longer in the subsequent race. So I was ballooning out for. further and further as they went along. Hey Tana trained the two horses. Hey Tana! Haitana! Whilst overworking fine cottony, quietly trained dashing Salterre to be cherry ripe for the big race.

Unfortunately for the syndicate though, things came unstuck when dashing Salterre was injured only a week before the race. Oh no. Cutting its leg on a barbed wire fence, meaning it was unable to race. Oh no! From here, the smart player would probably have been to abandon the scam. The three were meeting in a Brisbane park. Brisbane pub when Gillespie phoned their financial backer Mick Sayers to tell him that they might have to call it a day. Sayers didn't take the news well telling Gillespie if he bailed on the

scam one of the trio was going to turn up dead. One in three chance. That's great. Two out of three. Yeah. The odds are in your favour of not turning up dead. So yeah, worth the rolling of the dice. I'd take that. Well, they disagreed. So if someone said one of the three of us was going to get killed because I'll remind you there's three of us as well you'd be okay with those odds two to one let's play Russian roulette later yeah Dave's gonna die I don't think I am I think you are because I'm gonna rig it oh okay yeah okay so I shouldn't have said that you shouldn't have said yeah could you edit that out edit that out Dave's head stricken that from the record I will I will not tell Brent about that when he does the odds later on so this is what Gillespie said he

said, he was at the pub, the three of them were at the pub. He went off, took this phone call, he said, oh, Sayers said one of us is going to be dead. Apparently, though, that might not have actually happened. Maybe Gillespie was making it up using Sayers as a sort of boogeyman to scare them into going through with it. That's what journalist Peter Hoistead believes. Hoistead become like the kind of expert on this whole scandal. He's written a book about it. He goes around touring doing interviews about it. Touring. He does 100 dates a year.

He's a touring journalist. But yeah, he's a long-term columnist for the Australian as well. Cool. So either way, whether that is what happened or not, they forged on with the plan. But now they needed kind of a plan B because they didn't have the imposter horse anymore.

So they needed a new horse. Get some kids in an outfit? Yes. Did they think about that? Themselves. Yeah. I reckon three men could outrun a horse. Yeah, three times the running ability.

One horsepower equals three manpower. Is that right? Yeah, I think that's mathematically correct. Yeah. I'll double check. Brent. Okay. So they ideally wanted another identical horse, but the odds of finding one proved to be difficult.

Right. Because they couldn't. Not in the couple of days they had before the race. Horses like humans are individuals. Yeah. They're all snowflakes. It's beautiful. Well, I know we're all snowflakes.

Yeah. Like one time we went on a school camp to Outback Australia and there was a pub where people would put their licenses all at the pub was just covered in licenses from all around the world. And of course we're there, 17 years old. Gotta be 18 to drink here. So everyone's going trying to find someone that looks like them to use as their back go. That's so good. As you said, the odds are really against it.

Yeah. That's so funny. I wouldn't have even thought of that. That's the kind of nerd I wanted. But the photo is so small. A horse is big, you know. Yeah, true. And like you're looking at a photo on someone's ID, all you're seeing is like shoulders up.

Yeah. You're not saying what kind of hooves they have. When you can see a horse, you can see all of all. Yeah, their faces might look similar, but their tails might be slightly different. Yeah. That is very true. So they were on the lookout for another horse, couldn't find one that was identical, so they had to buy one that they could get their hands on.

And it was a horse named Bold Personality. Oh, that means he's a bit shit. Shit. He's an ugly horse, but he's got a bold personality. I hadn't considered that, but yeah. They're really, yeah, really focusing on the, on the poverty. I mean, if he's an ugly horse, then the other two are ugly horses too, right? He looks similar. No, this one, oh, he doesn't. He did not. It was Basenkov's Harbour, so they had to go up and drive it back on the back of a float to Brisbane.

Like dashing Salterre, it was much faster than fine cotton, but unlike dashing solterre, they were not identical. In fact, probably beyond both looking like horses, they didn't have a lot in common physically, including size, colour, that sort of stuff. Size? Color. Yeah. I mean, both of the things are pretty hard to change. I reckon you'd notice the, I mean, to be honest, first thing I'd notice is that it's a

different colour. Right? First thing you'd notice is size, typical. Yeah, I'd be like, that horse is six times slush. This is the biggest horse in the world. You've chosen the horse that's in the Guinness. book of records and then you've tried to replace it with that. I mean, you've got a client day. You could have picked any horse. Why did you choose megatrops? The biggest horse of all time.

This is a statue of a horse. It doesn't even move. Yeah, we'll put wheels on it. It's going to remote control. It's sick. We put a Ferrari under the hood. It's driving around the track. It's a prancing pony. Doing burnouts. Can we have money now? Yeah. Do we win? So the syndicate had a problem. The horses were different colours. Find cotton a dark chocolate brown, bold personality, a much lighter brown. It's most brown. Yeah, sure. How many browns can they be? Basically the same. To conceal this on the eve of the race, the boozed up trio made their way around Brisbane, clearing out chemists of ladies' hair dye. To be fair, it is easier to go darker than lighter.

Thank goodness. So, otherwise they'd be bleaching a horse and that's not good. And then you've got to go like a toner to get the right kind of colour. Going darker is a bit easier, to be fair. Okay. So you're feeling good about this? No, absolutely not. But I'm just saying like, fhew, that's one thing they didn't have to worry about was bleaching a horse. But they bought the entire city supply of hair dye. Well, they're driving four or five bucks because they need a specific color and brand. So they just went around.

How did you figure out? Horse brown. Do you have any horse brown? Oh, yeah, we've got four or five bucks. It's fantastic. We'll take them out. I wonder how they figured out exactly which color they needed. Yeah, well, I think they just probably got a box and held it up next to the horse. Walk the horse into the camera. What colour's that?

Yeah, you've got any of Clare-old that-horse colour brown? Yeah, we do, actually. Actually, yes. We just got a palletful. That's the number four, no worries. Anything else? There's women with brown hair in the city going, I'm going grey and I can't cover it.

I've got regrowth. Later that night, whilst downing many beers, the group set up a makeshift equine salon and gave bold personality a makeover, rubbing the hair dye in its beautiful light brown coat before drinking some more and passing out as they awoke the next morning bleary eyed and hung over

feels like it's going to end badly they went out to inspect the results of their die job the site that greeted them wasn't good as they went into the backyard at 6am already with fresh beers in their hands they were greeted by the sight of a bright orange bold personality that is bold

Yeah, now I get where the name comes from Something I didn't consider is that Human hair and Horse Hair apparently is different And it is, you know, it reacts differently to hair dye Somehow human brown Equals Horse Orange I think that's day one of hairdressing school Does it the opposite is your beard horse brown?

Yeah, I try to diet horse brown And you know, this disaster happened Embarrassing Yuck Yeah, I did not get to run in that that race. It was an unconvincing lookalike before. Now, even more so. Yeah. It's the world's biggest horse and now it's bright orange. Apparently one of them burst out into laughter as they saw it, but it's the day of the race now. And they think,

or at least two of them, think that Mick's going to kill one of them if they don't win. Yeah, so like, laugh cry. My favorite kind. Yeah, the only kind. Or a shower cry. Yeah. We're about a shower laugh cry. No. Never that combination. Yeah, I pushed it too far. I'm so sorry. Unbelievable.

They were running out of time and had to start making their way to the track. On the way, they stopped at Robert North's place where they took bold personality out onto the front lawn to try and hose off its new color. They also had at the same point they had fine cotton with them as well. So they had the two horses on the trailer, just in case at some point they had to do a quick swap back. So they're always ready with fine cotton there as well, just in case some... Why don't just dye fine cotton orange as well? Oh, that's good. Is it?

In the past. Yeah, but, oh, yeah, okay. So if anyone goes, hey, fine cotton isn't orange. Yeah, he is. The real fine cotton over here will show you. Oh, no. I've said too much. So apparently they're doing this on the front lawn.

So if anyone was driving past that day. Just see a horse in the front yard getting hosed down. And it's bright orange. Bright orange. So it would have been quite a sight. Oh my God, this poor horse. Luckily, the orange dye rinsed nicely out of the coat. And while wet, it actually looked quite like the colour of flown cotton.

Okay, let's wet the horse. So let's just keep the horse wet. We'll get a fire truck to drive alongside it, constantly blasting it as it wins the race. See, I don't know if they thought of that. If you were around back then. I'm an ideas, man. You are an ideas man. So they knew that with time the horse would dry and it would go back to the light brown.

So their backup plan was to put a coat on it, you know, like a horse coat. Yeah. And just keep it covered until the last minute take off the coat when it's in the race. Hope that no one notices. Yeah. That's the plan. And a good plan. That seems pretty reasonable.

Is that a good plan? Could it just be like the horse is a bit chilly? Yeah. And orange. I mean, chili. Why not just put it, just keep the coat on it. in the race. Maybe just don't do the scam at all. Oh, no.

Yeah, no, you're right. Again, stupid of me. Put the effort in and train fine cotton to be better. Oh. Yeah, they actually did the opposite of that. They trained him to be worse. That wasn't the only problem. Another problem, fine cotton had distinctive white patches on its high legs, sort of like white socks.

Oh. Both personality did not. Okay. Okay. That feels like something you'd probably notice. It's a pretty obvious one. You're going to put socks on this horse? Yeah, put socks on him. You've got a jacket, he's got socks?

Yeah, he's ready to hit the tan. That's so cute. That's cute, isn't it? He's them like rocking up. The bounce, I'm not in those shoes, sorry, mate. Oh, I put socks on. I got socks on. I'm actually quite dressed up for a horse.

I think you're behind him. Actually, Google a horse. None of them look as good as me. You've ever seen a horse in a fedora? A fedora. Yeah, he's got a fedora on. Oh, this horse is ready to go. Just to, like, complete the leg.

look, you know. Fedora, that's a dress-up horse. Fedora ball. I hate myself for that. Oh, I thought it was great. No, you didn't. Don't you lie to me. You're fedorable.

Stop it. Evan, could you put a fedora on Jess's head? Whoa. That's cool. You are fedorable. Thank you. So they remembered that amongst the drinking the night before they'd forgotten to do anything about the white markings.

Like, oh, that was meant to do it. that we forgot. Whoops. But then in the front yard. A kid in the front yard. In the front still in the front yard. Gillespie looks over and notice a can of white spray paint. He's like, I'm in luck finally. Why was it just there? I'm in the shed. Sure. So he goes over with a beer in one hand, white can of spray paint in the other. He sprays the markings on a bold personality's like fine cotton's right there so he can make it look just the same. He's like, I know. Double thumbs up Yeah

That's all it's doing with his son It's just giving the horse legs Thumbs up to you Thumbs up to you Again thumbs up to you Do you think this whole time the two horses Are talking to each other like What are these fucking guys

I've lost it Yeah Yeah I think they were Yeah The white paint Did not look good It can't be safe either Don't paint an animal.

This horse, like, honestly, they treated it so badly. It was in a hot, sweaty trailer the day before, a long drive from Cops Harbour to Brisbane. Apparently, this is something that our mate, the Australian journalist, talked about as well. Apparently, it was so dehydrated when it got there. They had to do this weird thing where they put a hose down its throat and just poured water straight into its stomach to rehydrated. Obviously, that is horrific and also they want this horse to win a race. Yeah, so look after it. Everything about it is, yeah.

They don't seem like great people. No, but also so dumb. That's the main focus for this is that they dumb. Do you have this any point where your spray panning horse that you think, I don't want to do it? No, I think that's when I'd be like, this is living. This is just what I imagined my life would be. At some point you'd just be like, I'm so deep into this. Yeah.

You will want to try anything. But it's funny because you get caught in those things or it feels like I've come as far, I've got to follow it. But if you pull out at any moment and just scratch the horse, idiots aren't talking about it in 35 years time, you know. Hang on, wait. Are you saying we're idiots? Oh, no, I'm sorry, not us. The other other YouTube web series about this. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, idiots. No, well, the conversation that this kicks off. Yeah. This will be a, this will spark conversation. So you're saying our viewers are idiots? No, no, the people they tell. And then they tell secondhand. So our viewers' friends and family are idiots.

Not their friends and their acquaintances. They're enemies? And enemies. Okay. I dare to tell them. Tell your enemies. Tell your enemies close. Hashtag, share information with your enemies day.

You see the enemies twice. That was the part of that. But tell your enemies closer. It's one of the things I lived by. For me once. So the white paint didn't look too convincing. So they go, well, I know what I'll solve this. We'll wrap the ankles.

Oh, I thought you meant that. With bandages. Oh, I think you were they glad. No, bandages, horse bandages, covering the horse's ankles. Still, this wasn't the end of their problems. They're like, all right, we've done a pretty bad job on the paint job.

We'll put a coat on it. The paint on the thing doesn't. work, let's cover that as well. And you don't mean a coat of gloss? No. They put a high machine gloss. I reckon I don't know what can fix this paint job. Another paint job. At least it was hair, because I'd heard, I'd heard a long time ago about this briefly and that they painted on. I'm picturing like house paint with a brush. Yeah, like a roller. I'm going to imagine a roller because like brush feels like it's too close to the texture of a horse. Right. So it's just like brush on brush. You didn't get horse hair brush. Yeah. So you just, it's appropriate. You just roll. You just roll.

That's what they should have tested their dye on. Yeah. But yeah, so if the socks, the orange paint job, that wasn't the end of their problems. All of a sudden one of them realised they hadn't fit the horse with shoes yet. It was going around barefoot. Oh, doesn't that hurt the horse? Well, but technically you put socks on before, shoes usually. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that's true. I don't know if it hurts the horse. Because they, when do they put them on if they're going to have to work on? Because I mean, horses don't naturally have shoes. Yeah, that's true. Their feet are very. hard. It's just, I think horse hooves are just, you know, keratin or whatever, fingernail stuff. Yeah, right. I think they evolved. They used to be like feet with toes and it sort of evolved

out of a nail, I think. Is that not true? I think that's true. Evan, in post, can you put either true or false underneath that? Is it flashing on the screen right now? So then, so it doesn't have horseshoes on at all. It doesn't have horses shoes on. You need a ferrier. Yes. And they apparently grabbed the phone book, like, who's a farrier? We know who can keep a secret. Because obviously we're bringing in someone the last minute. They're going to see this weird scene. They call in Freddy's tight-lipped ferry.

We don't tell no, I ain't no snitch. Freddy, just put the shoes on the car. I don't want to hear nothing. I ain't seen no. I'm just going to put some shoes on a horse. I ain't seen no horse. I didn't see no horse. I just see horse feet, okay?

I just put the feet on the horses. I'm a butcher. So it's off. So it was off the scent. So they got, they got a... What do you mean? I never met no horse. I never put no shoes on no horse before.

I'm allergic. I'm allergic to horses. Why would I put shoes or horses? I don't know why. I'm doing this bit. But I love this character. It's hot. Lipped Freddy, the farrier.

He's great. I don't even have hands. How could I do this? How could I do it? I've never even heard of a horse before. What does it look like? What's a horse? That like a bin with wheels?

I don't know. I don't know. I could be what a horse is. A bit with wheels. He's good. He's good. God, he's tight lips. He really throws him off the scent.

I mean, he's not tight-lipped. He just speaks gibberish until people lose interest and walk away slowly. Okay, we get it. Jeez. So they get the farry around, tight-lipped Freddie. Yep. And he realizes when he gets it, he's like, oh, this. I thought it was a harness racing horse.

Is this a, it's a thoroughbred, is it? Like, yeah. And he's like, I've only got, I've only got shoes for harness race horses. And they're like, well, we don't have time. Just chuck them on. Apparently they're quite different. They're made for very different running styles. But they were running out of time.

The plan is for them to win the race. Yeah. And they're not really putting any actions into place to win the race. No, it feels a little bit. Now everything you've told me, I would. give them odds of 33 to 1, which is what they had in the first place. Yeah. They've done everything to make this horse that's way better than the field, come back to the field.

Like by the end of this, yeah, he deserves to be running in this race. I mean, if he wins this race, like, he deserves the race. Yeah. Totally. So he's now a recently orange horse with white feet and bandages. It must look like such a fool. This horse looks like an idiot. It's wearing the wrong shoes.

It was badly dehydrated the day before. It's just, it's not an ideal preparation for a big second novice handicap race. So as ready as it was going to be and they were back off to the races again. Through all of this, Fine Cotton was still there along with him and Fine Cotton came along for the ride to the track. They just kept it out in the parking lot. That's sad. Well, like a window? I guess so.

You'd hear your name announced. You'd be like, no, that's me. I'm fine cotton. Sorry, the horse would hear its name announced, would it? Horse just know their names. Horses know their names. A horse always knows. No, that's elephants and they don't forget.

Anyway. A horse always knows. An elephant never forgets. A horse always knows its name. And Friddy never snitches. The three rules in life. Yeah. So somehow with the coat and the socks and everything,

they get the horse through to the starting barrier. No one brings it up. No one's noticed that it's a different horse. Can I just say? Different size. Different colour. Bandages. It's clipping and clopping in the wrong way.

It's got the wrong shoes. The other thing is, which I just realized, is it's the horse race for losers, right? So imagine all these horses are covered in bandages. Some are missing legs. They all look dishevelled anywhere, right? So maybe that's how they're getting away. The perfect disguise. All these horses are second or third.

third, fourth rate horses. Oh, yeah, they wish they were second rate horses. We dream of that. All morning word had been spreading that something was afoot and money was plunged on a fine cotton like we said before. There are stories of all sorts of people having money on the horse, including members of Queensland's Queensland Police's fraud squad. They were there on track.

Hey, you know, it was a different time. Apparently Queensland police was a wild time in the 80s. We're undercover, right? Anything goes. It was the wild west. in Brisbane in the ages apparently. There was also a priest there putting on a huge bets, mobsters. They're all at the track, cheering on the horse.

They knew to be a different horse. So it's quite well known amongst the world. The word got out and it just seemed to spread and it felt like most people at the track somehow knew. Everyone's cheering on this orange horse. Fine cotton, so it was race time now. Fine cotton began the race slowly but built up speed. I guess at the start it would, you know, I was getting used to the new. shoes, built up speed and ended up running out of its skin, or at least for fine cotton,

you know. Oh, you don't mean that. Down the home straight? Not literally, no. I'd kept it. I mean, in this story, I mean, if they had bleached a horse, it may have run out of its skin. They realized during the race, oh, it was a snake all along. They put, they put horseshoes on a snake. They're that dumb. I don't have snake shoes when they got horseshoes. Just put them on, just put them on. We're like, we're going to go, put them on Where did he add snake shoes? Like, snake, snake skin shoes.

He's actually just a shoe salesman. A door-to-door shoe salesman. Never seen a shoe in my life. So. I'm more of a flip-flop kind of guy. Down the home straight, it was a race in two. Fine cotton versus harbour gold. It was neck and neck.

The horse has traded the lead. One then the other. Harbour gold, fine cotton, harbour gold. Harbour gold is the favourite. Harbour gold was the favourite. The one's the favourite then dropped away, that's right. Yeah. Fine Cotton's kicky again on the inside.

Fine Cotton and Harbourgold. Fine Cotton's in front. They're drawing to the line. He's just in front. Fine Cotton Harbourgold lunge right on the line. They hit it all. Jesus is close. But in the end, as they hit the finishing line,

Fine Cotton bobbed at the right time winning the race. No. I don't know why I want to applaud. Despite everything. I mean, that horse has been through a lot. Yeah. Yeah, true. Really quite an amazing win.

Fine cotton, but not fine cotton. Yeah. As soon as the race finished, there are cries around the mountain yard. Ring in, ring in, ring in. Mayhem rained in the betting rings here at Eagle Farm, following the announcement of the disqualification of fine cotton. The little-known Coffs Harbour eight-year-old was backed in from 33 to 1 to start 7 to 2 equal favourite. The racing stewards called for an immediate investigation.

They should have already been suspicious based on the rumours in the bedding plums. But the white paint running down fine cotton's hooves probably tipped them off a little bit of well. No. He's melting. It's okay. He does this after every race. Yeah, it's fine.

His little socks melt. Don't worry about it. It's all right. It's not shame a horse, okay? When you were saying painting the tone out different, I'm like, that is actually pretty close. The stewards requested trainer Hayden, Haytana, answer some questions, but he'd fled the track. I don't blame him. Winning bets on fine cotton were not honoured and the race win was instead awarded to the second place Harbour Gold.

Harbour Gold as an official inquiry was open. Dave, so you were right. You said you would have put your money on Harbour Gold. Thank you. You would have won good money that day. Weeks later, Haytana came out of hiding to do an exclusive interview with 60 minutes. Weeks later. Amazing. Where he claimed he only went through with it as he thought his life was at risk, saying a man threatened him with a gun. Haytana was found drinking in a pub outside of Adelaide around a month after the race and was taken back to Brisbane to face charges. Apparently he was spotted doing some shopping.

They called the cops and they found him, traced him into a pub. Robert North, one of the other, the son of the socialite, he was also charged and both men were sentenced to a year in prison. Gillespie was on the run for longer, but when he was eventually found, as the ringleader, he was sent to prison for four years. None of them served the full sentences, but... Right. What's really the charge?

Is it animal cruelty type? I think it's fraud sort of fraud-based charges. And yeah, probably back then, the animal's welfare, they're like, yeah, you can mistreat a horse. It's horse racing. But you can't rip off the punters. Especially when the fraud squad is in on the scam, sort of. Yeah, the fraud squad would have made some money. And we didn't, and now you'll pass.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't pull it off properly, we're going to punish you for it. Totally. If you pulled it off, we'll turn a blind eye. The three sort of, they did. didn't get on all that well, especially Gillespie and the socialite son, North. I've seen interviews with both of them since. North calls Gillespie a throwaway of a human being.

Oh! And Gillespie... I don't fully get that. He's just like... He's not... It's just like... Whatever. Whatever.

He's not worth thinking about. Whereas Gillespie calls North a guy with the heart of a split pee. Oh, okay. He said that when one of the phone calls of one of the mobsters came through, North took the call and he handed over to Gillespie. Gillespie spoke to him for a bit and he turned around and North had fainted. That's the story he tells. It feels like they're just embellishing the stories in both directions.

Do you think maybe he left out that they'd both been donating blood at the time? Yes. And he hadn't had any jelly beans. It happens to all of us. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. They were doing a blood test.

Oh, that's no blood. Woke up on the floor. Hmm, had to say, oh, I haven't had any breakfast. I had had breakfast. You're just a weak little boy. That would have you woke up on the floor. Is that when you fell from... Fell off the chair?

Yeah, I was feeling funny and I'm like, I'm not going to say anything. No, you always say something. I'm going to lean forward and see what happens. I'm going to try and stand up. Actually, I might, I think I might go. Yeah. So, the main three guys all guys all guys. prison sentences. They weren't the only ones to find trouble though. The horse got prison sentences.

Oh no. No, the horse is okay, but a Catholic priest named Father Edward O'Dwyer was banned from racetracks for life after betting thousands on fine cotton having prior knowledge of the scam. And maybe most famously, Father's son bookmakers Bill and Robbie Waterhouse. You're familiar with the Waterhouses? Yes. Gay Waterhouse's husband and father-in-law and Tom Waterhouse's dad and granddad. They were banned from racing for life as well. And they were both bookmakers, so that was their livelihood. Really?

But they also were fan to have made bets with prior knowledge, and then apparently lied about it under oath as well. Shit. Fourteen years later, that was overturned, so that I think Robbie Waterhouse maybe is still a on-track bookmaker again. Yeah, I didn't know. Wow, that's crazy. There are also stories floating around that certain people who were aware of the scam

used it to their advantage. They assumed that the switch was always going to be uncovered, and some then used that knowledge to load up big on the original favourite harbour gold, who by race time had inflated odds. Yeah, right. But you can't take away their money, though, can you? No, so they got paid out.

A legitimate horse, wow. John Gillespie was one of these people. He later claimed he and Sayers, the guy who financially backed the plan, the heavy guy. Gillespie later claimed that he and says both made out with millions of winnings on harbour gold and that that was in fact the plan all along Made out is funny

They made out with stacks of cash With a horse Right so they they bet on That's if you believe Gillespie And a lot of people say you can't You can't believe anything he says Yeah right He's a big spinner

But if you do believe it He pulled off the massive double sting without the knowledge of his co-conspirators Haytana or North. In 2010, Gillespie told newspapers he had $1.8 million of winnings waiting for him once he got out of prison. And he took that overseas and invested around different businesses in Asia through the following decades. Others cast out on this version of events, including former Sydney Race Stewards chairman John Shrek, who said of the revelation, with great respect to Mr. Gillespie, anything he says, you would have to take with a big pinch of salt. Not a grain of salt.

A pinch, it's actually a little bit bigger. Yeah. A big pinch, he said, though. Yeah. Big pinch is several grains of salt. Yeah. So it's actually a little bit more than your average grain of salt. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like he was trying to add extra emphasis in it, but he actually diluted his point. A huge, you'd have to take it with a huge, like a truckload of salt. Yeah. Wait, what's your point now? I don't, I don't follow it. So yeah, it's hard to know, but it feels like Gillespie, you know, ego wise, maybe he just wanted to be like, no, I'm not an idiot. I didn't do this huge dumb thing.

That was the plan all along. Obviously the plan all along was that the other horse would win a duh. Sake. There's another story about a guy even higher than says in the underworld who had knowledge of all of this and he used it to his advantage and made millions and millions out of it. Right, but above that was someone else. He was controlling him like a puppet. But it was betting against it.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like a Mission Impossible's film. Everyone's just taking mask off. Ah, did it all along. I meant to make that horse orange. The horse takes his mask off and it's Tom Cruise. You might be wondering what happened are the real fine cotton? Yes.

Normally horses that have been involved in scandals like this apparently get put down. I think a lot of... Why? It did nothing. What did it do? But I think it's just like, oh, it's name. Its reputation has been ruined. So just let it live on the fucking...

The horse racing industry is they, like, so many of them just, they end up getting put down. But what reputation are you talking about? He was 10th of 12 shit house horses. But now we know that that was because they were overworking it. Yeah. Yeah, he probably. And purposely. Nine out of 30 days.

So it wasn't even that bad. That's a weird thing about it. Why not just get a real shit horse? Just let it live on a farm somewhere. Well, you'll be glad. That's what they normally happens to them. And that's what is what horse racing normally does, just kills them off once they've no longer raceworthy.

But Hay Tana helped avoid this by hiding it on his way out. He hit it at the Queensland Mounted Police Paddock just up the road amongst the police horses. He just like let it, let fine cotton into the police horse paddock. It really was a crazy time for police, wasn't it? Basically hiding it in plain sight, which is my favorite way to hide something. And it wasn't until months after the same. scandal that they'd discovered fine cotton was in there hanging out with the other horses

months because they're doing like a headcount and they're like hang on we've got an extra horse yeah it's actually head of horse here from then fine cotton was bought by a movie producer named john stanton uh who apparently was the guy who gave the crocodile hunter his big break and we thank you for your service john stanton he knows talent when he sees it that horse is going to be a star that is totally what he thought he also bought the rights to the story and he was hoping to turn it into a film with fine cotton playing himself that's not a horse

this is a horse fine cotton in his debut performance as fine cotton things didn't pan out though on that movie never got made not yet not yet

but all good things must come to an end and the Battlers Prince died in 2009 at the ripe old age of 32 so it did live a good life for a horse is that old for a horse apparently that's a pretty good

Nice. And for the ring in, bold personality. So I didn't mention it before, but when they bought Poled Personality, the syndicate bought it with a dodgy check. Of course they did. We weren't realising we were going to have to buy another horse now, so we don't have any money until we make all this money from the scam. So they wrote a check and said, yeah, catch that.

But there was no money in the account. So when they fled, bold personality, luckily, the Coffs Harbour horse owner happened to be on track that day. So apparently a lot of the day they were like, oh, he's going to notice. So they had to like, there was this scam within the scam of keeping his attention away from his old horse. Hey, hey, over here. Like trying to get a baby to take a photo? You're like, ooh, look. Keys.

Oh. Isn't that fun sound? Get out the way I need to watch the horse race. He's a bunny. Ooh, bunny! They're giving away free pies. You like those, right? That'll work for you, Dave.

That'll work for you. Yeah, sorry. It's my one thing. That's how I distract you always. So because of the check bounced, they never really bought it off him. So the original owner got him back and he also lived a quiet life into his old age. Oh, yay. But I think it was a super, like, it just ruined him as a race horse.

And he never raced again, I don't believe. But he did die. But he did live a long peaceful life. which is nice. And yeah, that brings us to the end of the story of the fine cotton scandal. The darkest day in Australian racing history. Not really, but they said that in the papers at the time. They've done more fuck stuff.

This is a spin-off of our podcast do go on with over 200 episodes to listen to. If you like this topic, check out some of our other sport controversy-related episodes like The Malice at the Palace, the Montreal Screw Job, the Rumble, in the jungle and that time Australian cricketer David Boone drank 52 beers flying from Sydney to London. Subscribe for free on your favourite podcast app and be sure to subscribe to this channel to check out our other videos. Now we're going to take Matt away to get that horrible horse brown out of his beard. Oh you're going to give that a good rinse. Wrence that off you dirty boy. Get in the front yard. Evan could you fix this in foe some hour? Maybe just put a horse on my

face. Put glitter in it. Oh glitter horse. Yeah, glitter horse that'll fix it. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link tree, Very, very easy. It means we know to come to you and you'll also know that we're coming to you. Yeah, we'll come to you. You come to us.

Very good. And we give you a spam-free guarantee.