Brash would offer inflated odds on betting exchange Betfair for horses ridden by Poy and German – as much as $15 for an $8 chance. Unsuspecting punters would back them for a win and Brash would pocket the money because the jockeys ensured the horses lost.

In the Swan Hill maiden race on August 7, 2022, they landed $18,000 in less than two minutes.

German made sure his horse American Russ lost, while Poy had a different task – his runner, Mr Scofield, had to beat German’s horse home to land a separate head-to-head bet placed by Brash.

In all, pro punter Brash placed 89 bets on 37 different horses ridden by German, and 46 bets on horses ridden by Poy. Only two of the 135 bets lost.

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The seeds of this, ultimately, doomed friendship group were first sewn in 2018.

Brash, who ran online tipping service Cannon, approached Poy’s father at Sandown races and offered to do speed maps for his 18-year-old son free of charge.

As a result, Brash and Poy soon became close friends, speaking on the phone “at all times of the day and night” and even playing online games together, such as FIFA on PlayStation.

German was subsequently drawn into the group through his friendship with Poy.

During evidence, Poy was found to be the “key player” and the “link man” in the deception.

He “directed and co-ordinated” bets to be laid by Brash by sending encrypted messages on burner phones using the alias “Leo”, while Brash was referred to as “Blue Bull”.

“This conduct was not thoughtless, careless or even reckless,” Adrian Anderson, for the stewards, told the tribunal.

“It was a deliberate, elaborate scheme designed to avoid detection by the use of secret messaging with the use of secret phones and code names.

“It was only through the careless act of Mr Brash that the offending was uncovered.”

That carelessness involved Brash taking screenshots of their encrypted messages. Stewards later found those screenshots on Brash’s phone.

They revealed a damning list of bets in which Poy outlined the races, horses and amounts to be wagered, such as “Race 3, lay the 1 for 70/80 (thousand)” , “Have 10K on mine to beat his H2H (head to head)” and “Race 8, lay the 2, 80k”.

Poy initially denied any involvement in the scheme, but stewards used data from Optus and Crown Casino to create a series of maps that consistently placed the jockey and the burner phone in the same place at the same time.

“The offending was very difficult to detect,” Anderson said.

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Tribunal chair Judge John Bowman found that Poy had “wilfully engaged in behaviour that strikes at the very heart of the racing industry, that is its integrity, both real and perceived”.

“Conduct such as yours has the capacity to inflict great damage upon the image of racing and public confidence in its integrity. It risks creating in the minds of some people that ‘the game is rigged’,” Bowman said.

It has been an ignominious end for a boy born into a famous racing family.

His father, Michael Clarke, rode into the history books by winning the 1986 Melbourne Cup on At Talaq and then the 1990 Cox Plate and 1990 Japan Cup on Better Loosen Up for David Hayes.

But Poy took his mother Janelle’s family name because she was the last of the Poys and the name would have been lost. Her father, Leo, was also a jockey.

Poy left school to become an apprentice and until April last year rode more than 350 winners from more than 3500 rides.

He lost his mother in 2020, and two years later was banned for two months for misjudging the number of laps in a race at Kyneton.

He used the whip eight times and eased his horse down after passing the winning post for the first time when there was another lap to run.

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Now he has lost the “right to earn income from what is in effect, the only job he’s ever known” until he is 38.

“He is ashamed and apologetic and is indeed quite humiliated that he was lured into participating in misconduct over the relevant period,” Poy’s representative, Tim McHenry, told the tribunal.

“He, of course, has no guarantee of ever returning to racing, although his further hope and wish is that he can do his time, obtain the forgiveness of the racing community, and indeed return to gain full employment.”

The tribunal heard Poy enjoyed a close relationship with his father, had a partner and intended to pursue work in Queensland with a company that repaired hail-damaged cars.

The tribunal also heard that Poy had “underlying psychological vulnerabilities” that made him “highly susceptible to undue influence from others”.

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