Dodgy sale at FasigTipton
 

http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=36006

Hopefully some action will be taken here. This happens all the time.

If the actually scratched all presales it would be quite an empty sale.

Sport of Kings.

dodgy? you must be from the UK

This outright fraud.
"Brocklebank was also the underbidder on the filly."

Bockelbank bought the filly for $29,000 a day before. Any ideas why this guy was bidding on his own filly during the sale ?

There should be jail time for this guy. They can't just let this go.

This thread needs constant exposure. Another outstanding article by Ray Paulick.

Sumitas,
Agreed. Those "pinhookers"...uggggggh.
Also, I know you're not albetty. Geesh!
DTS

thanks DTS, i have better things to do than masquerade around under another nic, although it is halloween :D ...

here are some questions
1) were this pinhooker and Chase in cahoots to defraud an unsuspecting owner ?
2) was there collusion in the FT office to get this filly in this sale after she was sold the day before ?

there's enough evidence here that the KY attny general needs to start a criminal investigation about this event.

Sumitas,
You ask some good questions. I wish I knew the answers.
My guess is that in the "fine print", there's an option to offer the horse for sale as listed or scratch out.
The last thing we need is to have more suspicions.
Just the appearance of "dirty" is clearly not what we need.
Shady stuff is just that.
I have to look at the rules (2004?). I sure hope they answer all the doubts that have been raised.
DTS

Because Brockelbank was the underbidder on his own horse there needs to be an investigation surrounding this "sale." I don't think his arrogant quotes are anywhere near enough to put this to rest.

Ok so I'm having issues with the math here so if someone could help I'd appreciate it. $270,000 was the sale price right? I presume it'd still be pretty high if not for the underbidding by the owner (sounds fishy and definitely needs to be looked into). Brocklebank goes and buys it privately for $29,000 and a $19,000 reserve had been the plan before. Sure they can do all this splitting of proceeds or whatever but I can't figure out how on earth a horse can go from being worth $29,000 to $270,000 in one day--say the real sale price would've been $250,000 just for the sake of argument and you get to keep the whole thing. I dunno maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't even seem like a good idea if you're trying to rig something as the original owner.

Seems like in this case you get more money selling a horse yourself on the up and up here then selling behind the scenes and getting a cut unless the filly's value's seriously overinflated. I'd love to know the highest bid before it was just Brocklebank and Chase. What annoys me is this: ""Buzz was upset," said Brocklebank, who then added, "They said the business should have been kept between me and the consignor, and not let the sale company know. It was a legit, clean deal, just a horse bought before the sale. Probably what should have been done, an announcement should have been made that the ownership had been changed." Ok so Chase isn't upset that something screwy was done but that the sales company got involved in the mess and it went public? Announcing the ownership change wouldn't have been enough here. Brocklebank was up to something. And people wonder why my goal in the future is breed-to-race. I trust me more than I trust one of these jokers.

In case anyone forgot there are sleezy characters in this game. This needs to be on page 1 some more.

One of the problems of the sport in general is to look the other way when something like this happens. Obviously the new owner who spent $270k on a $29000 horse was defrauded. But how much do you want to bet that the "unnamed" owner does nothing and even retains Buzz Chace to buy his horses? That is the sad part. How anyone could condone spending a quarter million on a Chief Seattle from this sale shows the guy is not really in touch with his horse operation. And all the BS about Jess Jacksons law and the sales integrity crap are just that, crap. The sales companies dont care about fraud unless they are being under the threat of being named in a lawsuit. I mean they make a lot more money on a ripoff deal like this one, than if the horse was sold for its actual worth.

Probably no other bids

This story is headlined on the bloodhorse site. Excellent job of reporting. Thank God for a free press.

There is nothing illegal about being the underbidder on your own horse. Half the time you are bidding at a sale, you are bidding against the owner. Other times you are bidding against the sales company. If the seller puts a reserve on the horse, then the sales company will bid against you until the reserve is met.

I know some buyers who don't like to ever bid on horses because they don't know if they are biddinag against real people or not. These buyers won't bid during the auction but will only buy horses who did not meet their reserve after the sale is over. That's actually not a bad strategy.

I dont know where you get your info from but the sales companies do not bid.

If this is true there should be a huge investigation into what is going on at these auctions. You are defining fraud in the bidding process my friend.