Flockton Grey's controversial owner Ken Richardson dies aged 84

Ken Richardson, a controversial figure at the centre of the notorious Flockton Grey ringer episode in the 1980s, has died at the age of 84.

Among the greatest scandals in the modern era of British racing, the Flockton Grey case involved a supposed unraced two-year-old – owned by Richardson and trained in Yorkshire by the little-known Stephen Wiles – bolting up by 20 lengths on his debut at Leicester in 1982, only for it to transpire later the horse was a three-year-old called Good Hand.

Richardson, subsequently jailed for an insurance plot to burn down Doncaster Rovers' football stadium when he was chairman of the club, used intermediaries to place bets on the race and it was estimated he stood to win £200,000.

However, the easy manner of the 10-1 success raised suspicion among racing authorities and bookmakers, who refused to pay out. Investigators noted the Flockton Grey at Leicester had a distinctive scar on his leg, but the real Flockton Grey, when inspected at Wiles's yard, did not.

Alongside a couple of associates, Richardson was in 1984 convicted at York Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud, fined £20,000 with £25,000 costs and given a suspended nine-month sentence. 

Flockton Grey later in life

At the time, judge Harry Bennett QC said: "Members of the jury, I am sure that you must have found in this case, as I have, that it is both curious and fascinating and you may have thought more than once, 'Well, this would make a very good book, a very good detective story'."

Richardson continued to plead his innocence, but later lost an appeal and was warned off by the Jockey Club, which governed the sport at the time, for 25 years.

A Yorkshireman who made his fortune through sacks and paper, he had an interest in racing fuelled by gambling and claimed during the late 1970s and early 1980s he won between £70,000 and £90,000 a year.

He also had a training operation in Belgium, but the extent of his racing footprint was hard to grasp because he ran horses in other people's names.

He was seen as a figure of hate during his time at Doncaster Rovers when he picked the team and presided over the club's darkest days in the 1990s.

The real Flockton Grey, who never ran, died of a heart attack at the age of 28 in 2008.