“I found frozen mice in your trainer’s refrigerator,” he revealed.

Richards turned back. “Frozen mice?”

Knight recognized the look on his face. First, he would play dumb. Then he would lie. In Knight’s line of work, you had to assume they were always lying, and they almost always were. Everyone was on the make, and every claim was a con.

Early in his insurance career, Knight had begun to take great pleasure in proving that people were lying to him about claims. It started with his professional life. Then the joy of proving people are full of shit began to bleed into his personal life. It was both toxic and intoxicating and had reinforced his isolated existence. Now, in his early forties, his greatest source of joy was proving that people were lying not only to him but to themselves as well. Everyone is full of shit, and if they say they’re not, they’re full of shit for saying it.

Knight explained that the frozen mice indicated the trainer was raising snakes.

“The man is eccentric. So what?” Richards countered.

Knight had also seen the darker side of the sport when he was young. Doping was as rampant in horse racing as in professional cycling. Typically, it resulted in a green curtain coming out on the track before the offending racer was injected with a lethal dose of barbiturates or else got a pneumatic bolt to the forehead—a task that always fell to his father back in Saratoga.

“He’s doping your horses with cobra venom.” Cobra venom had been used for years in horse racing, as a nerve blocker. It made the horses run like hell for a few years before they collapsed from organ failure. “Aside from being against the rules, it also violates a number of criminal laws.”

Richards deflected as the horses took their positions. “I had no idea. That shouldn’t affect my claim. Your company still owes me eight million dollars to replace him.”

Perhaps Richards didn’t know. Perhaps he was just like those pinstriped conquerors in Saratoga who had merely paid for an outcome without bothering to ask any questions about how the sausage was made.

The starting bell rang, and the horses blasted from the gates. As the luxury suite burst into cheers, Knight leaned into Richards. “Whether or not you knew doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the legal technicalities of insurance fraud.”

“If I didn’t know, you still owe me money,” Richards interrupted.

“True, but do you think your trainer was only doping that one horse?” Knight continued. “You really think it’s just diligent training that has Gladiator on the path to a Triple Crown? If word gets out, you’ll be the Lance Armstrong of racing.” Knight suspected that Richards valued his reputation at much more than $8 million and also would not take kindly to a lifetime ban from horse racing.

Richards bristled at the absurd insinuation that his prized horse was also cheating. The system had already been gamed by his genetics. “Gladiator is the offspring of two champion horses. He can win fair and square.”