Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

What happens in many of these cases is actually way worse than a kickback. They will call it a kickback, but it's actually stealing. Some trainers will see a horse that they like at a sale. They will go to the consignor and ask the consignor how much they are hoping to get for the horse. Let's say the consignor says that he is hoping to get $600,00 for the horse. The trainer will tell the consignor to bid against him and run the price up to $1 million. Then the trainer and consignor will split that extra $400,000. This is outright thievery. The owner gets cheated out of $400,000. He pays $1 million for a horse that he could have gotten for $600,000.