The Fine Cotton Affair: Robbie Waterhouse Charged

This Seven News story recaps the Fine Cotton racing scandal of 1984 and reports that high profile bookmaker, Robbie Waterhouse has been charged with taking part in the scam.

The 'Fine Cotton Affair' refers to a horse racing substitution scam during a race meet in Brisbane in 1984. The scam involved a syndicate that included many of the racing industry's elite but is best remembered for the amateurish and bungling methods used to carry out the substitution.

The plan involved replacing Fine Cotton, an underperforming thoroughbred, with a lookalike ring-in called Dashing Solitaire. When the ring-in suffered an injury and had to be replaced, the Syndicate purchased a horse called Bold Personality. However, the new horse was a different colour and did not have the same markings as Fine Cotton, and so Bold Personality was dyed with hair colour and then poorly painted with white markings. 

The amount of betting on Fine Cotton that day was already raising suspicion and by the time Fine Cotton's ring-in, Bold Personality, had won the race and was returning to the scales, onlookers were noticing the paint and shouting 'ring-in'. 

The result of the scam was that several racing identities were banned for life, while others were fined and banned to shorter periods. The jockey was exonerated and continued to ride.