The tale of Tricky Rick Renzella and the royal racing scandal
The Queen loves horse racing, but the sport of kings has always attracted its share of scoundrels and scallywags. This is the infamous racing scandal which embroiled a couple of regal figures, writes Andrew Rule.
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Racing is a broad church. On Wednesday, we got the news that the Queen has received a humble gift from the Australian people: a biography of the world’s greatest racehorse, Winx.
Several squillion people saw a grinning ScoMo present it with the confidence of a man who knows Ma’am is a lifetime horse lover, rider and racing aficionado. It’s the thought that counts.
More evidence of racing’s appeal to the highborn is that the Queen’s Master of Horse, Lord Vestey, is also a Winx fan. He had already bagged his signed copy of the biography now decorating the royal bedside table.
But the sport of kings has always attracted its share of scoundrels and scallywags, too. One of them, a well-known gangster who is presently a guest of Her Majesty’s excellent Marngoneet prison, has a personally signed copy of Winx in his cell.
The author’s message to Prisoner X advises him “Be like Winx — never give up”. I know that because I wrote it.
It was a toss-up between that and “Never plead guilty”, a motto that Tricky Ricky Renzella lived by until his life of larceny ended last week.
Renzella, about as colourful as racing identities get, surfaced for the last time at the Springvale Botanical Cemetery on Thursday.
Dying was the only way he could wipe his name from the list of “warned off” people published monthly by the official racing circular, where it has been for 47 years. Surely a record.
He copped the life ban, not to mention a spot of jail, over the one “ring-in” scandal for which he was sprung. Maybe the authorities were also fixing him up for the ones he got away with, not just the one he hadn’t.
This was, of course, the infamous Royal School switcheroo at Casterton in 1972, when Renzella substituted a crack city sprinter, Regal Vista, to run under the name of a hack, Royal School.
The pair were fairly alike except for two things. First, Regal Vista had a big scar on his rump that Royal School didn’t, making him recognisable. Secondly, Regal could give Royal 100 metres start and beat him.
Regal Vista had once set a Moonee Valley record and run places behind champions in elite sprints.
That’s why Renzella, using a “patsy” as a false front, had paid plenty for him.
By contrast, when Renzella and an obscure Victorian trainer turned up at a dusty New South Wales farm in late 1971, they paid a pittance for the has-been country galloper, Royal School.
Regal Vista was supposedly going to Western Australia for his alleged new owner but went no further than the stables of Ross Afflick at Cranbourne, where he was hidden by day and worked in the dark.
Meanwhile, Royal School was running nowhere in minor Gippsland races, becoming known to stewards as a plodder.
By autumn, Regal Vista was fresh enough to buck his brands off.
And Royal School was slower than ever. Which is why Renzella and his helpers — and other mysterious folk — got such huge odds about him in the second leg of the double at Casterton on May 12, 1972.
After the horse that started as Royal School breezed home a winner then vanished from the track, there were 1078 winning doubles units at $111.90 each, effective odds of 200-1. Of these Renzella had 300, which leaves 778. Of these, police later traced two big telephone punters who had 225 tickets between them.
Another 550 winning tickets, worth a Toorak house at the time, were never cashed in. Why? Because the scam started coming unstuck the minute a wise trainer called Jim Cerchi spied the horse about to race as Royal School. Cerchi recognised Regal Vista. He had 14 kids to feed, so (legend has it) he backed it and collected before mentioning to the second-place getter’s trainer that the winner was not as labelled.
Regal Vista was not to be found (although he later turned up, unharmed) but that didn’t stop Renzella’s arrest. Months later, Cerchi’s horse truck had a hole shot in it by persons unknown just before he gave evidence at Renzella’s trial. After studying the real Royal School at the police stables, Cerchi was asked if it was the horse that had won at Casterton. He said thoughtfully: “Your Honour, it looked bloody like it to me!”
That excellent answer didn’t save Tricky Ricky and Co. Renzella was warned off for life and returned to being a crooked car dealer, at which he excelled. He would later be nailed stealing and “rebirthing” cars to flog overseas, not to mention growing hydroponic cannabis.
His co-conspirator Ross Afflick went to King Island, became reclusive and died a sad man. But others in Renzella’s circle survived to whisper tales of other ring-ins he’d got away with.
It all began well before Regal Vista and Royal School, when Renzella went to pat his good horse, Koda Pen.
The trainer laughed because Tricky was patting the wrong horse: Koda Pen looked just like the no-account galloper in the next yard. An idea was born that moment.
Just how many times Koda Pen ran (and won) under the names of slower gallopers is hard to know. But one of those who rode him recalls winning a race at Bendigo on Caulfield Cup Day in 1971, with Renzella stinging the TAB for a fortune.
But even the best scams go wrong.
On January 29, 1972, four months before the Casterton debacle, Renzella’s crew almost pulled off the biggest bent betting plunge in decades.
It was at Randwick. The “slow horse” with the long odds was Redine, quoted at 100-1 before being backed in to 8-1 in a race it had no chance of winning on merit.
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Lining up that day under Redine’s name was Koda Pen, of course. Renzella reckoned they would score enough to retire on.
It was looking good right up until the jockey cantered the horse to the start. He realised Koda’s action was wrong and asked the starter to scratch him, which would mean all bets on it would be cancelled. The starter refused.
Koda Pen, alias “Redine”, led until the turn, then went wrong and finished 13th of 20. It was a massive loss for the conspirators. Which was why Renzella went looking for another good horse to replace Koda Pen and found Regal Vista …
When Tricky Ricky was farewelled at Springvale yesterday, the eulogies skipped some of
this detail.
And there is absolutely no truth in the rumour someone checked the coffin to make sure he was actually in it.
Originally published as The tale of Tricky Rick Renzella and the royal racing scandal
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