Shawn eagerly accepts, despite Gus's yellow objections, to defend their former class bully Jimmy Nickels, feeling guilty for ratting on him, yet finds Jimmy remained a jerk but is now a rich, obnoxious womanizing midget jockey. The case is to find out why horses loose inexplicably, but a fellow jockey also makes a suspicious fall. Shawn digs into dirt on Jimmy's wife Janine, Santa Barbara racetrack staff and star commenter Barry Saunder; stumbling onto infidelity and the track's bleak future.
—KGF Vissers