Wasn't there talk of a movie being made some time ago ?
The ABC doco "The Track" covered it well a few years ago.
Here is the transcript from the episode that dealt with it:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thetrack/ep5trans.htmAt Brisbane's Eagle Farm on Saturday, August 18, 1984, a horse listed as Fine Cotton narrowly won a minor race. Racing is full of surprises, and Fine Cotton had been backed from 33-1, odds that on its form were even then a tad tight, in to a hot, 7-2. It's a much-told story, though some large and critical gaps remain.
"I can see the look on the face of one of the jockeys who was sitting in the jockeys' room. Ah smiling broadly ...and I said what on earth's going on? Oh he said Jimmy there's a ring-in I said oh cut it out please, a ring-in here on, at Eagle Farm?" - Jim Killen (retired cabinet minister)
In fact a superior galloper called Bold Personality had been substituted. The horse originally bought for the ring-in had injured itself weeks before. So apart from carrying different brands Bold Personality bore very little resemblance to Fine Cotton. It wasn't even the same colour.
"They thought that if they got, hair colouring, and um, got enough to fill up a couple of buckets, you could cover the horse with it, to, to make it look like, Fine Cotton. But as it turned out it doesn't take to horse's hair, there must be, a chemical disbalance there somewhere. So ah, they just went ahead and tried to paint it's white feet brown, but the horse come out red like a Hereford bull so, I couldn't believe it though." - Hayden Haitana
The ring-in was clearly the worst kept secret since Sir John Kerr's drinking habits. Money came for the horse from Sydney and Victoria, Darwin, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. As the horses returned to scale, there were already voices shouting "ring-in, "ring-in" and "wrong horse."
"I thought well, I'm in big trouble here so, 'cause at, by that time pandemonium broke out, people are jumping the fence and yelling "ring in", and all that so, I thought I'm gone, you know, I didn't even get to pat the horse when it come in." - Hayden Haitana
"Oh I got about eight scoops. Eight or 10 scoops out of Fine Cotton I, I loved that, you know. I was on holidays on August the 18th, 1984. And I just walked to the first tee at The Lakes, I'd played the back nine first and, a couple of fellows rushed over and said Keith, Keith, there's been a ring-in at ah, at Eagle Farm I said you're joking he said no the horse Fine Cotton. I said fair dinkum? Yeah." - Keith Robbins
"Fine Cotton, I think it was the greatest joke of all time everybody knew. Like you know, for, for a rort, for a duke, for a scam, it was a joke. Now I was at Warwick Farm at the time and, the buzz was around that, you know that there was something on in Brisbane ...a horse... called Fine Cotton was the horse to beat I would say a minute after the race, somebody said to me that Fine Cotton is Bold Personality. And the Waterhouses are involved." - Max Presnell
"Well I'd like to think I'd do a better job. Insofar as it was a terribly amateurish thing I, I don't think anyone that understands the, understands how, amateurish it was and how stupid it was, would ever think that any racing person would be involved with it. It was just so stupid. To think that you could ring a horse in, on a metropolitan racecourse, is absurd." - Rob Waterhouse
At first, Robbie denied backing Fine Cotton. But a number of people with strong Waterhouse associations were found to have backed the horse in ways and in places that might avoid attention.
Among them a Catholic priest, Father Edward O'Dwyer. He happened to find himself at the Appin Dogs betting on Fine Cotton. The circumstantial net of having been 'in the know' closed on the Waterhouses.
"The evidence in relation to prior knowledge, was overwhelmingly against them. Overwhelmingly. The AJC Committee found that, gave written reasons for it, Judge Goran found that, gave written reasons for it. ... and the evidence stacks up. Hundred percent, no question, end of story. Next question." - John Schreck
"If I'd have had prior knowledge, I can assure you, it wouldn't have happened. When you're going to do something which is dishonest it's got to make sense. To back a horse from thirty three to one to seven to four. Ah, it just doesn't make sense." - Bill Waterhouse
"I'm not sure what the words 'prior knowledge' actually are meant to mean but, there's no doubt that I, was wrong, firstly to be involved with a, backing a horse somewhat surreptitiously and number two not, more importantly not telling the stewards everything I knew about it." - Rob Waterhouse
"Robbie only put his money down when he knew, when he knew, he had an edge. And it is not an edge to know that there might be a ring-in going on. There's only an edge if you know, the substitution has occurred." - Arthur Harris
Part of the truth had gone fishing in darkest Tasmania. Big betting merchant banker, and Waterhouse associate, Ian Murray, had originally claimed his Fine Cotton bet of over $50,000 had nothing to do with Robbie. Schreck rode out in search of Murray.
"We proceeded to madly, dive around all the, tracks we could find around, the central parts, lakes of Tasmania. And as it would happen we, we eventually went across over this ridge, and there before us, like, the charge of the, cavalry coming, was, was Mr Murray and his people." - John Schreck
"The trek through... all that bush, at Tassie and come up, and find the tent, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Tasmania. You just, imagine just pulling back the flap and there's Ian Murray down there probably sipping a scotch. And the sheriff's walked in. Can imagine the reaction couldn't you? You know. You would poop yourself wouldn't you?" - Keith Robbins
"It was freezing cold a big raging fire going and he and I went a bit, bit away from the rest of the group and, chatted with, a couple of big thick scotches trying to keep warm in this Tasmanian, mountain weather. And he decided that it was in his interests, his family's interests, and racing's interests generally to come back and, give evidence ..." - John Schreck
Murray then admitted to Judge Goran, and the Racing Appeals Tribunal, that he'd put $50,000 on Fine Cotton, for Robbie Waterhouse. Robbie was later found guilty of perjury and both he and his father were banished from bookmaking and, initially, the track for life.
"Oh it was dreadful. It was ah, shocking news. Financially it took away my livelihood... the reputation, what else have you, was just... disastrous." - Bill Waterhouse
"If I'd told the truth from the start I wouldn't have been in any trouble I regret not having done that. It's hard once you get on a roller-coaster it's hard to get off the roller-coaster and you know, I was untruthful about it, which was, very wrong and I regret it I wouldn't do it ever again. But it's hard once you get on that roller-coaster to get off and, it perhaps required more strength of character than I had at that time." - Rob Waterhouse
Three men, including trainer Haitana, and a somewhat inflatedly described 'mastermind', John Patrick Gillespie, went to jail for the ring-in. And caught in the crossfire, was Gai Waterhouse, daughter of T.J. Smith, and Robbie's wife.
"Oh I think whenever people are under, any sort of major criticism, I don't care what profession you're in, they always eye you slightly, you know as though you've got some sort of leprosy or something, thinking that if she got too close they might catch, catch it. That's, that's life I mean you have to have very broad shoulders, and have to be able to wear a smile on your face, and not show them your true feelings. And that's how I was, when Rob was going through his traumas with the Fine Cotton." - Gai Waterhouse
Gai's association by marriage meant she had to fight a long legal battle against the Sydney racing establishment and the ancient prejudices enshrined in its rules.
"An Australian rule of racing at that time prevented ah, the spouse or partner, of a disqualified person from being a licensed person... that was the rules. It wasn't the AJC's decision they had no choice." - John Schreck
"They were wrong, and they were proven wrong ... by the ruling that has since been passed that, and it was really I suppose a landmark, victory, for working women in Australia. Because you can't be judged on your spouse you know, you have to be judged on your own merits. And that's where the AJC made their big boo-boo." - Gai Waterhouse
It ultimately took the threat of Supreme Court intervention to force the racing powers to license Gai as a trainer. The woman who at four had sat on the back of Tulloch, would become not just a successful trainer but the kind of high-profile presence that racing so badly needed. Because elsewhere, there were people much worse than the Fine Cotton mob. In a fiercely competitive field, Laurie Connell was perhaps the most exuberant, loudmouthed Aussie entrepreneur of the '80s.
