"Law & Order" Sport of Kings (2005)

Director:

Michael Pressman

Writers:

Dick Wolf (creator)
Richard Sweren (story) ...

TV Series:

"Law & Order" (1990)

Original Air Date:

4 May 2005 (Season 15, Episode 22)

Genre:

Crime | Mystery | Drama

Plot:

A jockey's murder leads detectives to a businessman who is accused of stealing from his company's pension fund to purchase personal luxury items. |

Plot Keywords:

Attorney | Detective | Police | District Attorney | Evidence

Cast

Dennis Farina	...	Detective Joe Fontana
Michael Imperioli	...	Detective Nick Falco
S. Epatha Merkerson	...	Lt. Anita Van Buren
Sam Waterston	...	Executive A.D.A. Jack McCoy
Annie Parisse	...	A.D.A. Alexandra Borgia
Fred Dalton Thompson	...	D.A. Arthur Branch
Scott Wilson
Jayne Atkinson	...	Defense Attorney Hammond
Murphy Guyer
Thomas G. Waites	...	Burton Fenster
Lois Smith	...	Mrs. Varick
Leslie Hendrix	...	Dr. Elizabeth Rodgers
Reg Rogers	...	Edgar Varick
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jesse Bernstein	...	Sam Barlow
Frank Bonsangue	...	Court Clerk
Alfredo De Quesada	...	Delgado
Jim Ireland	...	Chuck
Derek Michalak	...	Investigator Smith
Keith Moyer	...	Stable Hand #1
Holly Perkins	...	Guest
Izzy Ruiz	...	Manuel
Joshua Tolby	...	Jockey
Sonny Vellozzi	...	Courtroom Gallery Member
David Von Roehm	...	Horse Trainer

Company:

Wolf Films

Trivia:

Jesse L. Martin was absent from the last four episodes of the fifteenth season. He left the show temporarily to work on Rent (2005). His character, Det. Green, was shot in the line of duty. For those four episodes, Martin was replaced by Michael Imperioli as Det. Falco.

Horse Racing Can Be A Shady Business, At Times

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'm not a viewer of this show but I saw this particular episode advertised on TV and it concerned horse racing, a favorite sport of mine. So I finally gave this longtime show a look. (I do watch "L&O: Criminal Intent"). I find it's a bit unusual (all of you knew this) in that the cops disappear once the trial starts and we get a whole new set of "good guys." It's like two stories in one, but yet it is one story overall.

Anyway, a jockey is murdered outside a Hispanic bar and the suspects go from the bottom up in the racing game: from grooms, to another jockey, to a trainer and then to an owner. It all winds up being about greed, a common sin among killers in police stories on TV (and real life, too, I assume).

Along the way, we learn a few crooked techniques of the racing business, such as "milkshakes" and "fake payments for a horse." The racing business has always had a corrupt element. How much varies according to the class of horses and owners. I gather from this episode, the class of the racetrack is average to a little above-average.

Outside of the murdered jockey, another sad element here is the possible loss of retirement funds for an entire company: 300 workers. It's always horrible when you hear of this kind of thing happening, meaning innocent people losing big funds - sometimes their life savings - to white-collar thieves.

This is not a trial that ever gets to the jury for a verdict of guilt or innocence. That's the big surprise - which you can see coming with five minutes to go in the show - but I won't get into specifics to ruin anyone's viewing pleasure here.

Scott Wilson, a familiar face for CSI fans (casino owner and father of "Catherine Willows"), is an unbilled guest star here. My guess was that he played a key role here at the end, but it was never stated if it was he, or someone else.