A three-year-old filly named Ruby Queen had never won a race until she appeared to blow past the field as a 110-1 longshot at an Ohio racetrack. But it turns out that she was really a he.

Track stewards suspended three people and fined another after determining there was no intentional wrongdoing in a chain of mistakes that allowed the wrong horse to run under a different name last month at Hollywood Gaming’s Mahoning Valley Race Course near Youngstown.

An investigation found that a stable worker went into the wrong stall on November 4 and brought out a male horse named

Leathers Slappin instead ofRuby Queen who was in a neighbouring stall, said William Crawford, executive director of the Ohio State Racing Commission.

A track employee, known as an identifier, then failed to properly check the horse before what was supposed to be an all-female race, he said. The identifier’s job is to verify each horse by looking at the numbers on its lip tattoo.

“It’s unfortunate that it happened,” Crawford said earlier this week.

Such a mix-up is rare, but not unheard of, he said.

A review of the wagering revealed nothing unusual, leading the commission to determine that the horses weren’t switched to affect the race’s outcome, he said.

The horse that won by nearly eight lengths was disqualified, but the error wasn’t discovered until after the bets were paid out.

A US$2 wager on

Ruby Queen to win paid off US$220. Anybody who did win kept their money, while those who had placed bets on the next three finishers were able to cash in if they still had their ticket, said Bob Tenenbaum, a spokesman for track owner Penn National Gaming Inc.

The company, which operates casinos and race tracks in 16 states, did its own review of what happened. The employee who was the identifier is no longer employed by Penn National, he said.

“This was a very unusual circumstance,” Tenenbaum said. “It was simply a series of errors.”