Frank Stronach, the prominent former Thoroughbred owner-breeder and racetrack owner, was arrested on Friday by police in Peel, Ontario, Canada, and charged with five counts related to sexual assault, according to a release from the police. Stronach, 91, was charged with rape, indecent assault on a female, forcible confinement, and two counts of sexual assault, according to the police. He was booked and released and will be scheduled to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice “at a later date,” the police said. The police said the charges involved incidents that spanned “the 1980s to as recent as 2023.” Brian Greenspan, Stronach's attorney, issued a statement saying that Stronach “categorically denies the allegations of impropriety which have been brought against him.” “He looks forward to the opportunity to fully respond to the charges and to maintain his legacy, both as a philanthropist and as an icon of the Canadian business community," the statement said. Stronach, the founder of Adena Springs, an international racing and breeding operation, has largely retreated from public life after a 2020 settlement of a bitter dispute involving his daughter, Belinda, over control of the family’s fortune. The settlement gave Belinda Stronach control of the racing, casino, and real estate assets, while Frank Stronach retained control of the breeding side of the business. Frank Stronach was one of the most dominant racing personalities of the 1990s and early 2000s. He was named the Eclipse Award winner for Outstanding Breeder eight times and Outstanding Owner four times, and five of his horses received Eclipse Awards. In 2018, he received the Eclipse Award of Merit, considered the sport’s highest honor. Stronach made a fortune by turning a non-union tool-and-die shop outside Toronto into a multi-national, publicly traded auto-parts supplier after trade ties between Canada and the U.S. were relaxed in the late 1980s. At one point, he was considered a billionaire. In 1998, the auto-parts company, Magna International, branched out into racetrack ownership, acquiring Santa Anita Park. The company later added Gulfstream Park, Golden Gate Fields, Pimlico Race Course, Laurel Park, and nearly a dozen other racetracks to its portfolio. Shareholders quickly soured over the acquisitions, and the racing assets were spun off into a company called Magna Entertainment, which eventually went bankrupt. After a reorganization, the company’s assets were placed under a new company called The Stronach Group. Belinda Stronach, a former parliament member in Canada, was named the chief executive officer of The Stronach Group in the mid-2010s after her father began spending more time in his native Austria. After the settlement involving the family fortune, she re-branded The Stronach Group as 1/ST Racing. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.