It is a blockbuster of a story, a sweeping saga of greed, fraud, and almost unimaginable cruelty that could have been lifted straight from a best-selling Dick Francis horse-racing novel. The settings range from the raucous pageantry of the Kentucky Derby to the hushed, baronial offices of Lloyd’s of London in England, and even the minor characters—from an uneducated, chain-smoking Kentucky farmhand tormented by a secret to a corrupt Texas banker living in luxury at Houston’s Four Seasons Hotel—seem right out of central casting. “This story has got blood and money, scandal and intrigue, and one hell of a beautiful horse,” says Allen Goodling of Houston, one of the many lawyers who became involved in the case. “What more does anybody want?”