WHAT'S HAPPENING IS AN ORGANIZED CRIME.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing 

BEVERLY HILLS - If you've read horse racing's headlines this month, you may be surprised to learn that when the sport held its annual awards banquet Monday night, the dress code called for black tie and not for mobsters' double-breasted suits, lapel carnations and shoulder holsters.

Even as it celebrated Ghostzapper's Horse of the Year title, Smarty Jones' heartwarming season and the rise of new stars', a sport that's used to public-relations struggles faced a stampede of publicity that would make an unschooled observer think of racing as a ``Sopranos'' spin-off.

Trainer John Servis might have spoken for every racing lover when he answered a reporter's question about good and bad news after being honored at a luncheon for making Smarty Jones a household name.

``Hopefully,'' Servis said, ``there'll be more Smarty Jones stories in the future to boost (racing) back up.''

In the same way that baseball has been pushed to publicly confront the steroids issue because of the BALCO grand-jury revelations, horse racing could find itself forced into dramatic action on medication cheating and sundry suspicions by a spate of legal developments.

Look at some of the racing stories the Associated Press sent out to the nation's newspapers in a span of one week this month:

--Jan. 12: ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York Racing Association suspended its clerk of scales and his assistant Wednesday amid an investigation of jockey weigh-ins at Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct. Suspended indefinitely with pay were clerk of scales Mario Sclafani and assistant clerk of scales Braulio Baeza, a former Hall of Fame jockey.

(A Hall of Famer allegedly mixed up in funny business - not flattering stuff.)

--Jan. 14: NEW YORK - The state Racing and Wagering Board on Friday suspended the racing licenses of three horsemen, including a reputed member of the Gambino organized crime family, who were linked to a plot to fix a horse race by doping one of the animals.

(Organized crime, race-fixing and horse-doping - the sordidness trifecta.)

--Jan. 17: LEXINGTON, Ky. - Eclipse Award finalist Ken Ramsey was suspended for a week and fined $25,000 Monday by the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority for trying to pay another owner to scratch a horse.

(Even more embarrassing after Ramsey and his wife, Sarah, were honored Monday night with the Eclipse Award as outstanding horse owners of 2004.)

--Jan. 18: NEW YORK - A New York horse trainer and a harness racing driver were among 17 people who pleaded not-guilty Tuesday to charges that they fixed a race at Aqueduct by doping a horse with a performance-enhancing ``milkshake.'' If convicted, both men face up to 25 years in jail.

(Performance-enhancing milkshakes - who won the race, Mark McGwire?)

--Jan. 18: FARGO, N.D. - The founder of North Dakota's first horse racing simulcast service went on trial Tuesday on charges that she ran an illegal betting parlor with a former boyfriend who pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against her. Susan Bala and Racing Services Inc., the company she helped start nearly 15 years ago, face 12 federal counts, including money laundering.

(Money laundering - and you thought the list of sins had been exhausted.)

Throw in the spate of news about California authorities' inability to pin a drug charge on jockey Patrick Valenzuela, and this is a veritable pick-six of ugly developments.

What jumped out at racetrack regulars was the word choice in the official description of the New York case.

Giving a horse a performance-enhancing drug is a plot to ``fix'' a race? Isn't that like saying Barry Bonds, by pumping himself up with steroids, plotted to fix a Giants game? Normally, when you think of somebody trying to fix a race, you picture a conspiracy to stiff several contenders, not a plan to boost a single horse.

This is the moment when the racing industry sees these things the way fans and other outsiders see them: Giving a horse a prohibited medication isn't a misdemeanor. It's the worst kind of cheating that costs bettors big money.

As Ray Paulick, editor of the slick racing magazine The Blood-Horse, wrote of the New York case: ``The federal government takes a much harsher view of racing than the sport seems to take of itself. Most racing commissions redistribute the winning purse of a horse disqualified after testing positive for a prohibited substance. The trainer is also sanctioned. In this case, however, the U.S. attorney considered the implications of interstate wagering and came to the conclusion that (trainer Greg) Martin and two others were attempting to 'fix' a race, a federal crime.''

The bad news may be good news.

While racing insiders celebrated Ghostzapper, Smarty Jones and the other stars of 2004 on Monday night at the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel, maybe fans should have been toasting the month when the sport's long-simmering problems became too hot to ignore.