PARIS TOO HAS "RINGERS"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 93, 17 October 1934, Page 8

PARIS TOO HAS "RINGERS"

The habitual gloom of the Paris Press was relieved during the concluding days of August by the adventures of a trotting horse and its flight from justice (says an exchange). The mystery started when on August 16 an outsider called Halleneourt won a minor trotting race at Enghien for horses that had never won before. It was just bad luck that the name of the race was the Prix dv Palais Bourbon, giving the whole business a slight political flavour. And it was just bad luck for Hallencourt's owners and backers that quite unexpectedly suspicion began to attach to the horse and to themselves.

Outsiders have won before. But where Hallencourt's case differed from most others was that after he had won the race by a handsome margin he kept ou running. He rau clear through the paddock uutes and down a road and away for the training stables at Maisous-Lalitte with unimpaired speed. Trotting horses do not -weigh-in like thoroughbreds, and when a young man who said he was the driver presented himself to the stewards nobody suspected anything particularly wrong. Meanwhile, however, two lads were cashing in heavily at half a dozen betting booths. Their horse had wuu at 30 to 1 and they left the course with a bagful of money.

It looked as if something pretty had been put over on the stewards and the public. But that evening Paris began to buzz, in the way it does, with suspicion and inquiry. One heard iv the cafes and restaurants the story of a trotting horse- that seemed to be still running. Was it really Halleneourt or was it Hanoi or was it the old crack Ecureuil V which had been painted up with two white stockings and a star on his chest to look like Halleneourt.

Justice started in pursuit a whole lap behind, for by the time it got busy Hallencourt, or Hanoi, or Ecureuil V, or whatever the horse was, had disappeared. He had been shipped back to Antibes, in Southern France, according to those who should know. But by the time instructions reached Antibes to seize the. horse iv the name of the law and were executed, the imposter had vanished.

What is alleged is that Halleneourt never left-his stable at Antibes, where he was quietly munching hay when he was seized, and that Ecureuil. V was substituted.

All this was complicated by the fact that in the first place "Halleucourt" ran in place of another horse called Hanoi, which was employed peacefully drawing a butcher's cart around Maisons-Lafitte. Then there was the matter of drivers. The man who said he was the driver when the race ended was the owner, Andre Mary, who had just bought Halleneourt and registered his colours.

But, slow-footed and handicapped as it is, justice finally wrung from Mary a confession that he did not really drive. It was another driver, Ramella, all dressed up in the same colours, who drove "Halleneourt" to victory and then through the gates and away. In order to complete the camouflage and give the appearance of having driven a hard race, Mary had run down the road and back again until he was out of breath while the race was being contested. It was a stable lad who knew about the substitution of drivers who finally gave that part of the game away, but the law has still to discover which horse came in first and who jockeyed the substantial odds. Meanwhile, it has been formally ruled that it was not "Halleneourt" that won the race but the horse that followed him five lengths behind.