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Show - TEE HERALD, Provo, Utah, Sunday, December !, Page E3 - The case EDITOR'S NOTE shocked the Kenmcky Bluegrass: A wealthy horse owner was convicted of conspiring to kill a for insurance. Then a similar incident was reported in Florida. And now a federal grand jury is looking into the possibility g of a nationwide ring. these cases echo Though rarities, ' umettlingly through the barns and boardrooms of the sport of kings. LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -Powerful as they are, racehorses are fragile creatures. And so the death of a chestnut colt called might never have aroused if his killer hadn't of4nispicion fered to bring out the deadly hypodermic again. This is a story about what killed thor-gughbr- ed horse-killin- '. '. ; Mc-Blu- sh McBlush, besides an overdose of insulin. Was it just greed for the $100,000 proceeds of an insurance fraud scheme? Or were tightened tax laws, inflated 1980s debt and f!ain old hard times in the silky lealm of thoroughbred racing to Blame as well? It's also a story about other thoroughbreds that have died for their 'insurance value, sometimes crude- ly and cruelly at the hands of thugs I wielding tire irons or electric shocks. How many horses have been put ;down in this way? damn many, and we've ; to stop it," says Bob Craw;got ford, Florida's agriculture com- missioner. "These animals are so vulnerable, I'd compare it almost to hurting children." More than a handful of states ! I .' 'where thoroughbreds are raised 'and run are the focus of investigations by his office and a federal grand jury in Chicago looking into ;a possible "nationwide ring" of ;horse killers, Crawford said. "I ; think in the near future there will be more charges," he said. com- - Jnon on horse farms in thorough Ji I A II 1 white-fenc- - i- pealing his conviction on conspiracy and fraud charges. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, fined $100,000 and ordered to pay restitution. Two men are completing sentences for their part in the conspiracy to kill the horse. Dr. Joseph Brown, who admitted he injected McBlush with a fatal overdose of insulin, and Robert T. West, a bloodstock agent who helped arrange the killing, pleaded guilty and were sentenced in May. Their arrests in early 1990 resulted from an investigation by undercover agents of racing's little-knosecurity arm, the Thor- I 95 iBiiif twin ii ' i 5 r6 , i t B S-- i i f - ai - - I iftnr f . I- , . . ,.... T 7 1 V "l - -. J A 11 . . . , - .0 . - . A "For Sale" sign stands at ths edg grew increasingly insistent about payment and finally began threatening him; Minsky denies Brown's quickly agreed to talk. That's when authorities learned of McBlush. The colt, a son of the leading sire Blushing Groom, was a promise unfulfilled. Insured in foal for $300,000, he lost value steadily after a paddock injury to his leg prevented him from racing. At the time of his death, amid speculation that his $100,000 insurance value would be further reduced, his owners were told his only real value was as horse meat. "Fifty cents a pound," said Michael Baer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Lexington who prosecuted the case, quoting testimony. entire story, contending that Brown was so emotionally overwrought by his financial troubles that he became delusional. "He told me that he would break my kneecaps. He told me he would break my hands. I wouldn't practice dentistry," Brown testified at Minsky 's April trial. Finally, Brown said, Minsky offered a way out of his debt. "He called and said that he had the horse McBlush . . . that he was broken down at the time, but that he was still insured. And that I was a doctor could I put him to sleep without anybody finding out?" Brown said he quickly agreed: Brown owed money to many people, and one of them was Minsky, by then principal owner of "I saw it as the ... only thing I could do to avoid total ruin. " That call was in October 1987, McBlush after other partners bailed out because of high upkeep costs. He testified that Minsky o ' If ssMsaissspsal CAPSILA science totaling $100,000. Only when Brown, still in debt, offered to kill again last year in Florida did the truth come out. Lloyd's is seeking its money back. Authorities may have been more alert around the time of Brown's arrest because of ominous stirrings in the thoroughbred industry about horse killings for insurance fraud a perennial but isolated prob- lem, insiders say PLAYMOBIL to 24495 to pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Florida agriculture department's law enforcement division. retxmsi via and Accessories Ages I7495 to 3 (a 7-1- v, y pseanGGLEwW 74 COROLLE DOLLS To Be Loved foi a Lifetime 3 Puzzles for All Ages Games 8v 95 29995 to 0jr 4 l"l & epw $95 BRIO MEC 1 50 6900 So, Highland Drive w ' 95 and up to if' 9995 Sets for 2 IS SANTA yA EGO TECHNIC Playmobil for your toddler 18 months 5995 re a.iiiim iwiiii ZCMI Center Dovrntovm Quality Wood Building Sets ForYc Child to CHILD DEVELOPMENT TOYS Infant And Preschool Toys 695 450 to 25995 to 1348 . uiijtMiiiiWMBiiiiw screamed." horse han: Two Chicago-are- a dlers, Harlow Arlie and Tommy Burns, were charged with animal cruelty and insurance fraud. Arlie increasing 1250 Doll House 1 "I could hear the horse's leg break from where I was," O'Brien said. Streetwise was clubbed with a crowbar, and had to be destroyed. "The horse bellowed and with the recession. "Hard times, hard crimes, they say," said Lt. John O'Brien of the Lego Building " nearby agents. Building Kits for All Ages ji i tf" Usually, O'Brien said, "It's the ' type of crime that's obscure. It's difficult to prove." The killing of the gelding Streetwise last February near Gainesville, Fla., was different. Again, there had been a tip, and two suspects were placed under surveillance. But the fatal injury came with such brutal suddenness that it couldn't be stopped by he said. McBlush, injected first with bacteria-lade- n water from a and then bucket with a heavy slop dose of insulin, died Nov. 4, 1987. Brown did his dirty work well: An unsuspecting Lloyd's of London sent McBlush's owners checks t i CGMPUMIHTJ mm whas ' of a horse pasture near Lexington, Ky., while thoroughbreds graze in the background. AW! sS i (..4 A to 1 - - r, ititfMa .1 AP Laserphoto 1 CHRISTMAS p mm 7s I- - ! - PLAYMOBIL "1900" tt r J s? "J ' - f "I far !ft:rl Headquarters f --! 1 I1- - Playmobil f 1 . Utah's seAi tr :. I .5 wriwy v " , i PLMM0BIL M r i ' six-mon- th V jOT..: KOOSH ; T. ed hundred-thousan- ft 70 - . JP, &s&... I r ! .1 yrAi m ' Blue-gras- s, "Information was picked up that there was a particular individual who was available to kill horses who did kill horses," said Paul Eerube, president of the TRPB, based in Fair Hill, Md. That individual turned out to be Brown, a Kentucky dentist and horse owner who was swamped by debt. Tipped by the TRPB, FBI agents arrested Brown at Florida's Calder Race Course before any horse was harmed there. "When a person shows up at a racetrack with hypodermics and drugs, there isn't much wiggling room," Berube said, and Brown 3990. " University of Kentucky study warned the industry in this pivotal state was "seriously at risk." "Over the past few years, the wrong kind of people have been getting into the horse industry," U.S. District Judge Henry Wilhoit Jr. lectured one of the McBlush' conspirators, Gerald Minsky, at his sentencing in July. "The people that are getting in are just simply not taking into account the risks." The judge spoke of 200 years of racehorse breeding in the the lush land of steepled manors in barns and central Kentucky that is the heart of the nation's thoroughbred industry. A prosecutor spoke of "a reverence" for the sleek, swift animals here. d dollars "A sounds like a lot of money to anybody, but when you compare that to destroying a beautiful creature," the judge fumed, "it's nothHe died an agonizing ing at all death." Minsky, a Connecticut businessman and civic leader, is ap- hitmen. nomic factors. Changes in tax laws in 1986 made horse ownership syndicates less profitable, at a time when the industry already was slumping. The average price paid at the prestigious Keeneland July Yearling Sales in Kentucky had tripled from about $200,000 in 1980 to a peak of $601,467 in 1984, but fell 'to $400,000 or less from 1986 to """ bred strongholds. Bankruptcy filings are frequent. Indeed, a 1991 oughbred Racing Protective Bureau, one of a number of agencies that have received tips about horse The crimes including the crowbar beating that sent a race-- ! horse screaming through a Florida barn in February may be brutal. But the blame apparently goes less to sadism than to bloodless eco- "For Sale" signs c now are 1321 EZ22SS21& 3995 Foothill Drivo |