THE New South Wales Crime Commission and the Australian Jockey Club have opened wide-ranging investigations into allegations of race-fixing.
And the first casualty of the probe came yesterday when former Melbourne Cup-winning jockey, Jim Cassidy, was banned for six months for failing to appear before the inquiry panel.
It is claimed race-fixing has been rife in New South Wales with suggestions that jockeys in South Australia and Queensland have also been involved.
After weeks of rumours, the allegations surfaced for the first time, officially, yesterday with the suspension of Sydney-based Cassidy who booted New Zealand raider Kiwi to victory in the 1983 Melbourne Cup.
The AJC was advised, by senior representatives of the Crime Commission, of information gathered on tapes of telephone conversations recorded by Federal Police during the course of a drug investigation of a leading Sydney identity, who is now in custody. The tapes - 4,000 hours of them - were subsequently handed to the Crime Commission. Transcripts of the calls which the Sydney Morning Herald had obtained reportedly revealed that alleged conspirators in drug dealings had bribed jockeys in Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney, but mainly in New South Wales capital.
Two current senior Sydney jockeys 'participated in race fixing with an alleged drug boss who is now in prison awaiting trial for drug importation', the report said.
But it still remains unclear whether Cassidy was one of the jockeys mentioned in the transcripts or was simply summoned before investigators to provide additional information for the panel.