Sport: Shocking the Bettors

In 27 years of selling cars and car parts around Southern California, Andrew J. Crevolin, 47, put together a tidy fortune. To keep his money occupied, Andy began to buy race horses. In 1947 he bought two thoroughbreds from Movie Magnate Louis B. Mayer; they both turned out to be winners. Andy, it seemed, had as sharp an eye for horseflesh as he had for car customers. This year, with Derby Winner Determine and Handicap Star Imbros leading his string of more than 20 horses, Crevolin is the top money-winning owner in the U.S. Moreover, Andy Crevolin talks as freely as his horses run.

In a recent interview with a reporter from Blood-Horse magazine, Andy sounded off on the way his horses are handled. “We don’t try to win with our horses the first or second or third time,”said Crevolin casually. “We give them experience. We’re not going to kill a horse the first time he runs and break his heart.”

Even with experienced racers, Andy explained, his jockeys often have orders to take it easy. Determine, he said, could have won the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs this spring; instead, the little grey colt ran second to Hasty Road. “My boy had instructions not to whip my horse, not to touch him, not to drive him.” At Chicago’s Arlington Park, when Imbros ran on a sloppy track in the Equipoise Mile, “our instruction was to ease the horse back to dead last as quick as possible because we didn’t want to hurt him.”

Such tricks as “qualifying” (i.e., running simply for experience), or a jockey failing to hustle on the slim chance that his mount might draw low weight in later handicaps, were part of honest horse racing long before Crevolin. But to horsemen it seemed like a breach of faith to talk about such matters in public. Crevolin’s careless attempt to explain away a few defeats only strengthened the smart-money boys’ suspicions that now and then the fix might be on, that every entry in a race is not always “well meant.” At Del Mar, where Crevolin’s horses are now running, stewards called Crevolin on the carpet, sent a report to the California Horse Racing Board. In Chicago the Illinois Racing Board promptly started an investigation of its own. Already chastened, Andy Crevolin talked faster than ever in an effort to beat the rap. Said he: “Please believe me, my words were said in a spirit of conviviality . . . [I] did not mean to convey any thought that there exists in racing any dishonesty . . .”