Sport of Kings (Season 15, Episode 22)
Premise: A Panamanian jockey who can’t get rides is shot dead outside a downtown bar, and his curiosity about a gifted colt leads to the horse’s owner, a company chief who bought it with his employees’ retirement money.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 22
- Detectives
- Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina), Det. Nick Falco (Michael Imperioli)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Reg Rogers as Edgar Varick, Murphy Guyer as Cass Holliman, Scott Wilson as Ben Chaney, Lois Smith as Eunice Varick, Jayne Atkinson as defense attorney Hammond
- Director
- Michael Pressman
- Writers
- Story: Nick Santora; Story & teleplay: Richard Sweren & Wendy Battles
Summary
The Investigation
“Sport of Kings” begins with an unidentified young man shot three times near El Gato Rojo, a rough downtown bar, where a patron recalls an older white man waiting outside in a jacket with a triangle-shaped logo. The victim’s small, muscular build and acid-worn teeth, from purging to make weight, suggest a jockey, and fingerprints identify Oscar Salazar, a licensed Panamanian rider who rarely got mounts. Track security reports a recent shoving match with Burton Fenster, a trainer twice suspended for doping horses.
A tipster suspects Fenster gave his long shot Kahuna Baby a baking-soda “milkshake” before a win that Salazar was slated to ride until Sam Barlow replaced him on race day. Baking soda and a hose turn up in Fenster’s car, but phone records clear him of murder. Barlow says Salazar had been promised a ride on trainer Cass Holliman’s promising colt, Razputyn. Holliman denies it, though his stable jacket’s V logo could pass for a triangle at night. A groom admits Holliman sent Salazar to El Gato Rojo the night he died, and Holliman says the meeting was for the colt’s owner, Edgar Varick, head of a family packaging firm. Varick had passed the colt off as a $28,000 purchase, ordered it held back to hide its ability, and was angered when Salazar asked Panama’s racing commissioner about its bloodlines. The bar patron picks Varick out of a lineup.
The Trial
Varick posts $1 million bail. Barlow admits he kept Razputyn boxed in on Holliman’s orders, and the insurer reveals Varick actually paid about $3 million. His own accounts are nearly empty; the money came from the company pension fund, whose trustees, his mother, Eunice, and longtime foreman Ben Chaney, signed whatever he brought them. Varick has siphoned about $90,000 a week for three years for horses, a sailboat and a Jackson Pollock, and Branch has grand larceny added, but the judge bars evidence of every purchase except the colt.
At trial, Holliman says Varick told him to disguise the horse’s talent and set up the meeting with Salazar. Varick claims the colt was an investment for his workers and blames a betting scheme by Holliman. During McCoy’s cross-examination, Chaney shouts from the gallery that Varick is a thief. The next morning Varick is gone; the judge declares a mistrial and issues a bench warrant, his Mercedes turns up at JFK, and McCoy moves to seize Razputyn and Varick’s other assets for the pension fund.
Spoiler, the ending: When police inventory the car towed from JFK, they find Varick inside, shot once in the head. No arrest follows; the detectives note that 300 cheated employees and Salazar’s loved ones make a long suspect list.
Why it stands out
- The opening titles credit both Michael Imperioli and Jesse L. Martin, even though Martin did not return to the series until the following season.
- A defense preclusion motion keeps the jury from hearing about the defendant’s boat, art and other horses, leaving only Razputyn in evidence.
- There is no verdict: the defendant flees mid-trial, a mistrial is declared, and he is later found murdered.