Horses running under false names in the colours of famous owners at unauthorised flapper meetings — if only a murder was thrown in, there would be all the ingredients for a Dick Francis novel.

The scurrilous events at Dingle in August 2002 were, though, fact rather than fiction, and the denouement was finally played out at the Turf Club last Monday.

Dingle is the most famous of the many pony-racing meetings held through the summer. The Co Kerry course is a tight, hilly circuit and the riders are teenagers, some of them just as competent as the apprentices and claiming riders of the racecourse proper. To call the runners “ponies” is often a misnomer. Most of the races are contested by thoroughbreds.

The Turf Club, which polices the rules on Ireland’s 27 official racecourses, takes a dim view of the likes of Dingle and considers it a cardinal sin for any licensed trainer or jockey to attend even as a spectator. Running a racehorse there is tantamount to high treason.

Few people knew that the horse running as Bog Road in a hurdle race that summer was Ballygowan Beauty, a horse good enough to win a Grade One hurdle at the Punchestown festival four years earlier, and the gelding was allowed to start at 3-1 despite being well backed. He romped home more than 20 lengths clear and the following day, when he was carrying a 12lb penalty and started at 6-4 on, he won almost as easily.

Over the next few weeks rumours were rife on the racecourse that Ballygowan Beauty had run at Dingle under the guise of Bog Road but not until 13 months later did the Turf Club decided to take action. Asked at a press conference what they were doing to prevent horses running at flapper meetings, the stewards admitted that they had discontinued sending officials to Dingle some years earlier.

They then started digging and Jimmy Johnston, the former Garda officer who is in charge of security, made extensive investigations. The evidence he uncovered included a video of the Dingle race and a photograph of the winner. This bore a tell-tale resemblance to Ballygowan Beauty in the winners’ enclosure in Tralee in 2004. The gelding has most un-usual facial markings, which were shown in considerable detail in the two photos. They were identical, as was the large white “sock ” that both of the horses had on their near-hind legs.

The Turf Club’s Appeals & Referrals Committee was chaired by Limerick-based solicitor Gordon Holmes last Monday. Tattersalls auctioneer David Pim and former senior steward Gerry Scanlan sat with him and the three men had no hesitation in ruling that the two horses were one and the same. They declared Thomas Walker, the official owner and trainer of Ballygowan Beauty, a disqualified person and recommended that the ban stay in place for at least six months. They also disqualified the horse from every race he ran in since his appearance at Dingle.

Walker is a cattle farmer at Dually near Newcastlewest in Co Limerick. He has been training horses since 1962 but he did not go to the Dingle meeting and he maintains that he is a victim of injustice. “I’ve seen other horses with markings like that and my solicitor produced photos of them,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned it wasn’t the same horse at Dingle and I feel I got a raw deal but what can I do except take my beating? I’m not going to appeal. ”

Being a disqualified person means that not only is he barred from owning and training racehorses but he is also not allowed even to go to a racecourse. He is concerned that he could miss the Listowel festival for the first time in 60 years. Two of his six horses belong to outside owners and they will have to leave his yard. He is also worried about the effect all this will have on his son Ambrose who “is mad on horses and training”.

Walker will have to repay prize money of nearly €75,000 and, he claims, live with a feeling of injustice. “The likes of me are the backbone of Irish racing. We are only small owners and trainers but without people like us you wouldn’t have racing because the big trainers would be winning everything.”

The horse known as Bog Road was ridden at Dingle by Paddy Flood, who was not then a licensed jockey so was allowed to take part. The following June he rode his first racecourse winner at Tralee. The horse was none other than Ballygowan Beauty. “I never had any thought that it might have been the same horse, and to this day I still don’t think it is,” he says.

When Flood rode at Dingle he wore the blue, white epaulette colours carried by the horses of Hamdan Al Maktoum, save for a blue cap. The Dubai sheikh would have been even less amused to see his colours, complete with cap, carried by Carapuncha when she won at Dingle last year. This was another ringer: the mare ran under the name of My Auntie.

The horse’s regular trainer, Suzanne Cox, submitted a written statement to last Monday’s hearing to say that she had sent the mare to her farrier, Michael McAteer, for a change of scenery and McAteer ran her at flapper meetings without Cox’s knowledge.

Cox was fined €1,500 and McAteer was disqualified for a minimum of two years. He has indicated that he will lodge an appeal but the story is not over yet. The Turf Club has discovered another racehorse who ran at Dingle last year and will hold an inquiry shortly. And that’s not all. A journalist who regularly goes to the meeting says: “There are other cases that have not come to light and I know the trainers are worried.”