Race-Fixer Says There Was More

Richard Sklar, sentenced Monday to six months in prison and fined $5,000 for trying to fix three races at Los Alamitos in 1995, told federal investigators that he had fixed about 500 races at all the major tracks in California in the last 10 years.

The tracks where Sklar operated were identified as Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Del Mar on the Southern California circuit and Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields near San Francisco. Many of the races Sklar said he fixed were run in the 1980s.

In his sentencing hearing in federal court Monday, Sklar, 44, told Judge William J. Rea that he works as a “turf analyst” at his home in Northridge.

“My clients go to the track,” Sklar said. “They only pay me when they win. They pay me a percentage of their winnings then.”

Besides the prison term and the fine, Sklar was also put on three years’ probation, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and told to pay horse owners the equivalent of what their horses would have won two years ago at Los Alamitos. These purses total $6,600.

One of Sklar’s accomplices was Richard Pfau, a jockey who was sentenced earlier to three years’ probation. Pfau has also been suspended indefinitely from riding by the California Horse Racing Board.

Edward J. Weiss, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Pfau was involved with Sklar in two of the three Los Alamitos races, but the government prosecuted Pfau for only one race because of an otherwise good background.

Sklar, who pleaded guilty to fixing three Los Alamitos races, was under federal probation at the time of the races because he had filed false tax information after cashing a bet at a track.

In court testimony Monday, Sklar agreed to make restitution to Marty and Pam Wygod, whose horse Molasses Reef finished sixth as the 17-10 favorite. Molasses Reef was ridden by Gary Boag.

According to a federal investigator, Boag’s attorney said her client denied any wrongdoing. Weiss would not say whether Boag is under investigation. In the Daily Racing Form’s chart footnotes of the race, it said: “Molasses Reef raced three wide with the second tier [of horses], was carried quite wide into the drive and then collapsed in the late stages.”

Regarding the hundreds of races Sklar said he has fixed, Weiss said he could not comment about the status of the investigation.

“I fixed them, all right,” Sklar said in a telephone interview Monday night. “But I’m not going to say anything else because I’m trying to sell my story. I’ll give it to the highest bidder.”

The two Los Alamitos races involving Pfau were for Arabian horses. At his sentencing, Pfau said Sklar paid him $2,100 to hold back one horse at Los Alamitos.

“[Pfau] was involved in many, many, many, many races,” Sklar said Monday.

Sklar said he called Pfau with the idea of sewing up the Pick Six, which with an $81,000 carryover was going to be large by Los Alamitos standards. There were no tickets with six winners that night and Sklar told The Times last summer he missed despite betting a $6,000 ticket.

“I want to play the Pick Six and your two horses have a big chance,” Sklar said he told Pfau. “Maybe we could hit it if your horses didn’t win.”

Sklar has been banned from California tracks since 1993, after being run off the Del Mar off-track betting facility for allegedly obtaining $2,000 in betting vouchers by illegal means.

In 1991, Sklar was with Bobby Unger when Unger was fatally shot in his car in front of a Century Boulevard hotel not far from Hollywood Park. Unger had won $72,000 at the track hours before.

“What I did was wrong,” Sklar said Monday. “I’m sorry for Richard Pfau and his family. I never meant to happen what happened to them. I’m embarrassed for my mother and father. I promise never to talk to another jockey again. Most of the time they stole my money, anyway.”