Drama - Old Time Audio · Various Authors

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar - The Racehorse Piledriver Matter

March 23, 2026·29 min·2 clips

Why don't you get lost?

Johnny Dollar opens with an expense account and a horse that already sounds like trouble. The file centers on Piledriver, a racehorse whose life is threatened and whose future depends on whether somebody meant to keep him sound or only meant to collect on him. Johnny keeps the tone dry. He moves through the conversation with Neddy, Leo Corbett, and Colonel Bushnell, where every answer seems to come with a hook. Neddy stays close, worried and eager, the kind of man who wants the job finished before it grows teeth. Leo Corbett is described as a man with very fast horses who run very slow until the odds get right. That alone would make a tidy mess. But Colonel Bushnell is the larger problem, because Johnny has reason to suspect him and has already offered him $60,000 for Piledriver. That money only makes sense if the horse stays sound long enough for the plan to work. Johnny also learns the horse can be kept under his personal eye for three days while the issue is tested. He does not rush. He sets a three-day window, keeps Piledriver under his own eye, and works to prove intent before the policy can be turned into a racket. The plan is practical. It also has the old insurance-investigator flavor of a man counting cigarettes while other people count on a miracle. The dialogue comes quick, clipped, and a little mean in the right places. Around it, the narration moves the case from clue to clue without wasting a stride. The episode stays interested in motive, not spectacle. That gives the horse-world scheming a sturdier edge than the title alone suggests. By the finish, the matter feels less like a barnstorm and more like a careful trap being set in daylight. It is the sort of story that lets a listener enjoy the setup even before the plan has fully shown its hand.

As heard by us

A racehorse insurance case gets a brisk, sly treatment.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar follows a racehorse insurance case built around Piledriver, and it keeps the pressure on as Johnny Dollar moves through the people tied to the horse.

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Why you'd press play

You want a horse-racing case where the expense account is half the personality and the danger keeps circling the track.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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