Saltwater in the Bluegrass (20 page)

Steve and Dennis had also been given an inside track for bidding proposals on future constructional developments that the Board of Aldermen and the City Council saw fit to vote on. Together, they had always received their share of bids.

Peter “The Bull” Masinee Sr., head of the Cincinnati Family, had called for a private meeting with Jerry Matteria and Chris McCroick. Together, the men agreed that it was time to reel in their fish. It was time to begin using their friendship with the Cardinal Company to become partners in other matters.

Matteria’s agenda was to infiltrate the Syndicate that he knew Dennis Raggert and Steve Terry owned shares in. It was a foolproof way to lay off bets while eliminating the odds when betting. Steve and Dennis were instructed to report to Cincinnati the next morning. Mr. Masinee had called the meeting.

The only thing Steve and Dennis knew about Peter Masinee was what they had heard from other people: that he was a ruthless, nasty, little man who was ambiguous in his speech but clear in his message. The meeting was direct, no room for negotiation, no room for attitude or demands. It was between associates, found to be warranted, and definitely one-sided. Steve and Dennis kept their mouths shut and their ears open, quickly deciding that they better cooperate with this new arrangement. Within minutes the meeting was concluded. Grudgingly they stepped back into the limousine. Within minutes they were back on I-71, heading towards Louisville.

Peter Masinee Sr. had their complete attention. Convinced the meeting had been successful, he now had the inside link in pulling off a bettor’s dream, controlling the odds to all the horse races the I & L

horses were running.

Money and influence were Jerry Matteria’s credentials in the Cincinnati Family. He knew the statistics of odds. He knew how to calculate and pull off scenarios that paid large dividends. Early on, he had started as a bookie, moved up into loan sharking, and with his talents had soon worked his way into organized crime. His ability to move money around was just one of his credentials. The key to his trade was that he knew how to offset the losses. It would help him set the odds through the local bookies in the Family’s favor to increase their take in the percentages of wins.

Jerry controlled the sporting games in the Ohio Valley. He knew who was winning, and he knew who was losing. He played his clients like suckers and kept them on short leashes.

He had men and women handing over entire paychecks to him. He had people who bet continuously. They were hooked, always looking for that one big score.

With Steve and Dennis now onboard and Jerry Matteria knowing that these two men owned ten percent of the I & L Horse Racing Syndicate, it was time to diversify the Family’s portfolio. It was time to involve the Family in the everyday horse racing action in Louisville.

In today’s horse racing, there are lots of different ways for a person to make a bet. For someone who has the knowledge, it is an easy way to fix the outcomes. This is where Steve and Dennis were going to come in.

Jerry Matteria and his people would concentrate on exactas. They would wager on the races allowing the trifecta and bifecta bets. There was more money to be made on these types of races. It was much easier assuring a second-and third-place winner or just a secondplace winner at the racetracks. The influences shared by the track personnel and working for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission was common knowledge. The KHRC, an independent agency of the state government, regulated horse racing and pari-mutual wagering on all horse racing and related activities in the state. One of the primary purposes of the KHRC and its chief state stewards was to supervise and ensure the integrity of racing at each licensed meet. This included: licensing, rules and regulations, anabolic steroid regulation, drug testing, the overseeing of funds related to racing, the promotion of races and providing purses, equine drug and research, backside improvements, fitness, and health and safety to the horses and the jockeys. Along with their many duties, the KHRC spent the majority of the time looking at the winners, not at who came in second or third. This is where Jerry’s talents came into play. No one would catch them if they made sure those looking were unsure what was going on. Leave the winners alone. Leave the favorites, the frontrunners, and the best jockeys to the crowds who bet the daily programs. Let these people set the majority of the odds while Jerry’s people concentrated on the place and show horses.

This is where the Family came in. They would either make sure the Syndicate horses won in a certain order on certain days, or they would make sure the Syndicate horses finished fourth, fifth, or worse, letting the horses they did not control move up into first, second, or third. Betting the odds this way greatly improved their chances to win big while controlling losses.

Steve and Dennis would make sure that at least one, if not two I & L horses, ran in each exacta race each day. This was their part of the arrangement, the deal that had been agreed upon. It would remain constant throughout the coming meets.

For now, this was all that would be asked of Steve and Dennis.
And they’re off! T
he spring, summer, and fall meets had proven to be quite lucrative for Milford, Katherine, and the Syndicate investors.

Thirteen mares and six fillies had won stake races throughout the season, not to mention a number of horses that placed and showed. It was looking financially strong for the small but influential group that called themselves the Dawn Patrol.

Many of the I & L members, including Milford, Steve, Terry, and Dennis Raggert were spending time on the backside of Churchill Downs race track in the early morning hours, meeting, eating breakfast, and watching the trainers as they worked the horses. Each morning, the trainers and riders would take thoroughbreds out on the track and put them through their paces. They would emphasize quarter-mile sprinting, along with association and timing drills involving the starting gate and its release.

It was all important in cutting down the need for blinders and the possibility of injury to the horse and to the jockey as they came out of the gates.

After each workout, the trainers would wash down the horses before returning these prize-winning creatures to their sanitary stalls. The Syndicate members were noted for their outlandish parties. During the daily races, three club boxes under the Twin Spires would come to life with syndicate members celebrating and cheering on their prize possessions. It was an everyday, all day event. It was from post time until long after the last race was concluded.
Jerry Matteria
and Chris McCroick, known as “The Dentist” for pulling out clients’ front teeth when they missed payments, were in full swing controlling what Peter Masinee had put in place. Organized crime was organized. It was a serious business. It was following up on doubts and uncertainties. It was a polished activity known simply as supply by demand. Basic instructions that were given were easy to follow.

The Family had infiltrated the backside of the track. They had established an attitude that was hard to walk away from. Peter Masinee was well versed in the ways of the world, and he expected his people to get things done. He knew there was a high tolerance level, especially in the professionalism jungle of honesty. When it came to corporate bureaucracy and finding ways to achieve his objectives, he was a master at persuading people to change their principles for the sake of staying alive.

Either you agreed with him or he broke your bones. It was not all that hard to understand the ways of the Family. It had worked for years, and Peter could not see changing his tactics now. Steve and Dennis
continued performing their daily functions building The Cardinal Steel Company into a mega-conglomerate, with steel structures popping up all along the Ohio Valley and jobs that reached as far north as Indianapolis and as far west as Kansas City.

Cardinal Steel had been featured in
Louisville Magazine
six times in the last two years and now had a feature running in the national publication,
Contractor’s Worldwide
, based out of New York. Their features discussed the intricate details of girder expansions and the fluctuation of stress in theory on high-rise structures. Twice a week, Steve or Dennis would meet with Jerry or Chris. They would discuss the Syndicate’s schedule of events for the upcoming races.

The meeting place was downtown, in the vicinity of Distillery Commons, off Lexington and Frankfort Avenue. It was a restaurant called the Cellar Dweller. It was where locals could get the daily Brown Derby Lunch Plate Special and good beer. It was dark enough to control the noise level and the privacy of conversations and light enough to see who was talking back at you.

The Cellar Dweller served a clientel that satisfied their egos with fists and attitudes, men that vehemently refused to adhere to the proper ways of the world. Jerry Matteria and Chris McCroick fit right in. They would take the information they received and then visit the backside of the racetrack, making their wishes known to the associates involved. By doing so Matteria and McCroick were able to complete the overall scenario for the upcoming races.

As for Katherine, she had been left out of the arrangement. She had not seen it coming. Steve and Dennis had always been fans of Katherine but not this time. This time she was being left out of the loop. Too many people were involved, and neither man knew whom to trust.

The speculations were becoming rampant.

The demeanor of Steve and Dennis was changing. Neither man knew where to turn. They had gotten in way too deep, too deep to work their way out. They had no idea how to separate themselves from the Family or their newfound “friends.”

Katherine’s gut feeling told her something was up. She could read this much, but at the time she was not sure exactly what it was. She could not pinpoint the problem. She had always trusted Steve and Dennis.

When she talked to Steve or Dennis, neither man would look at her. They didn’t talk with their usual shtick. Their tones and behaviors were different. Their reluctance to carry on a conversation was getting more curious. Everything was staying close to the vest. Katherine needed to find out what was going on. She knew that these two men were up to something. Their mistakes were being made by commission instead of omission.

Katherine was bound and determined to find the source of her exclusion. Was it an oversight, or was it simply planned? She had to know.

The effort of their friendship was there, but the outcome did not fit the anticipated results. It was what she always relied on. Steve and Dennis had become reluctant, complacent, and distant.

It was only a matter of time.

Katherine had visited with them on several occasions. She had always found them to be delightful and avid enthusiasts when it came to socializing, but over the last year both men had changed. Neither man was acting like himself.

“What is wrong?” Katherine would ask.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Why are you both acting this way?”

“What way? We’re not acting any way. We’re just busy?”

Katherine concluded it was best to have her people do some digging. She was confident they would find out what was going on. Katherine thought it foolhardy and irresponsible of them to try and pull anything over on her.

Jerry Matteria felt convinced he had the screws tight enough to keep things from coming unraveled. The boys from Cincinnati had played these follow-the-leader games on other businessmen in the past and had easily influenced them without too much trouble. The Cardinal Steel Company was too important and successful in the community to have a scandal leaked to the media. Jerry and Chris were convinced that they had swayed over any doubts of conformity that Steve or Dennis might have had.

This had become a three-year partnership. Things were moving right along. No one on the outside seemed the wiser to what they were doing, and Peter Masinee was pleased with the results.

During the second summer
after the I & L inception, on the second Saturday in July, associates of the Racing Syndicate began having their annual Pig Roast Barbeque. Lamar and Milford were the annual hosts, having the entire shindig catered and inviting bluegrass bands from as far as Nashville to come and perform.

The local sense was, if bluegrass music is playing and your feet are not moving, then, well, there is something wrong with you. If that is the case, you are obviously in the wrong part of the country. Within a few years,
the party had
grown to around five hundred people. Besides the members of the Syndicate, the party was opened up to all the people who worked on the backside of the track, the owners, the jockeys, the trainers, and the stable hands, along with their immediate families.

It had become a traditional calendar marker. It was an event that people loved and started looking forward to all the way through the winter.

The Syndicate was featured in
The Kentucky Horseman
magazine and
The National Publication of Racetrack Today
. More attention was being placed on the future of today’s horse racing and the business side of the sport. People were sitting up and taking notice of the group and basing their own organizations after several basic principles the I & L was using to be successful. It was turning into a venture that was in the forefront of every major racing group in the country.

In the summer of that same year, Milford Langston was named Owner of the Year and was awarded the Willy Shoe trophy for putting seven horses in the winner’s circle in seven consecutive races. People connected with the Syndicate were riding on a complete case of ownership high.

In November, during the fall meet, Milford and his group won both the Kroger’s Stake and the Kentucky Colonial. On Thanksgiving Day, the I & L won the fifth race of the day, the prestigious Jockey’s Cup. Success, excitement, and jubilation for Milford and the Syndicate was short lived when tragedy struck home just after New Year’s. On January the 16th, eighteen thoroughbreds were lost during the night when two stables on the Simpsonville Farm caught fire due to an electrical short circuit. Three stake champions died along with eleven other mares and four fillies. All eighteen horses were buried on the large knoll west of the eight-hundred-acre farm.