WEBVTT - The fat envelope: Part 2 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.560 Last week on Life and Crimes, Rick Wenzelis bought quite 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:09.120 a few race horses, and he bought ones that did 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.840 look like each other, and only one of them was 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.440 the good horse code of pennzaluss have a closer look, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.440 and he has a close look, and he realizes it's 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.120 all the same horse. And Rinzalez says, he's two envelopes. 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.160 Here's a thin one and there's a fat one. If 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.120 you choose the thin one, you put it in your pocket. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.320 After today, we don't worry about it. If you take 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.080 the fat one, you're one of the team. I'm Andrew Rule. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:37.480 This is Life and Crimes. Last week we looked at 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:42.920 the rise and fall and rise again really of Stephen Wood, 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.600 known throughout racing as the ringing jockey from the notorious 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.400 regal Vista Royal School ringing at Castadon circa nineteen seventy, 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.640 but who was also involved in several other ringings before 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.920 and after those events. This time we look at how 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.280 it all unraveled for Stevie, who is these days regarded 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.200 as one of the most entertaining and funny and oddly 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.160 enough honest people that you'd ever met. Of course, as 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.320 many listeners will know. It all comes to a grinding 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.479 halt when Rick Renzalez good Horse, the ringing Horse Code 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.960 of Pen, actually pulls up the lame after a race 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.320 at I think would end or somewhere, and Stevie said 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.160 that this horse needs a spell, he needs to be 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:39.399 looked after whatever. And the trainer and the trainer's assistant, 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.399 no one was willing to argue with Rick Renzealeb because 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:48.040 he was a bad tempered, foul mouthed, you know, semi 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.640 violent sort of semi gangster, and none of them wanted 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.560 to tell him that his good horse, Code to Pen 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:59.320 had a problem. And what the trainer did, rather than 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.800 work the horse and gallop him and all that because 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.400 of this suspect leg, he swam him and swam him 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.280 and swam him and hoped that he would stay fit 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.639 enough and that his leg would recover and so on. 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.400 And Renzella mounted what could have been and what he 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.560 planned to be a massive plunge in Sydney, ringing in 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.120 Coda Pen the good Horse for a no good horse 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:28.760 called Red Dean or Red Iron Rid and Steve Wood 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.959 tells the story that he cantered this horse out out 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.679 into the straight at Randwick got over on his neck 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.280 and he thought, oh no, this horse is jarring. I 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.040 can feel jarring coming up through that body leg. He's 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.359 not right. He's going to go wrong. He'll probably break down. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.720 But what'll I do. The money's on. I've got to 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.080 get him scratched because he knew that Renzala will have 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.800 backed this horse around Australia with in the doubles and 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.960 all the rest of it. He gets around to the start, 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.320 and because he's a relatively unknown Melbourne or Victorian jockey 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:10.000 riding against the cream of Sydney's greatest jockeys, Ethel Mulley, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.040 George Moore, all those sort of guys, he hasn't got 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.600 any pull, any currency, any credibility with them. When he 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.639 gets around to the start, he says, excuse me, sir, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.720 to the starter, I think my horse is not right. 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.000 I can feel the jarring in him, and I think 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.760 he's lame. And they get him to get off, and 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.079 then they lead the horse back and forth for the 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.480 club vet or the starter or somebody, and that official says, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.760 oh no, he's all right, And had Steve would have 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.160 been a better known senior jockey, particularly a Sydney jockey, 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.400 they would have taken his word for it, but they 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.760 wouldn't because he was a no name jockey, so they 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.600 force him to ride in the race. So he gets 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:57.040 back on the horse, he jumps out, he's drawn wide. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.600 He tries to lead the field to the first turn 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:04.560 and the horse seems to go all right, but in 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.160 the home straight when he puts the pressure on, he 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.840 feels it go wrong. A rider ranged up beside him 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.200 and would said, there's two hundred innutes for you if 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.359 you'd drop back and let me win, But it was 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.760 too late. The whole field overtook him and his horse, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.880 his actual horse, real name, cod of Pen, pulled up 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.640 absolutely lame on three legs, and I don't think of 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.920 a raced again. He certainly didn't race for a long time. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.960 But that was a very bad day for the ringing merchants, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:43.960 and one that Steve would sensed was avoidable because the 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.200 horse should have been pulled out earlier. They all go 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.479 back to a flat that they've rented there, and he 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.960 said the murder was pretty down, and he walked in. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.160 He was last there, and Rangela says, oh, here comes 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.920 out of jock and he grabs a pistol from Fred 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.919 from Sydney. He was there, the armed bodyguard. He grabs 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.560 his pistol and points it at Steve Wood and says, ah, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.000 your little bastard, and then laughs. It was all a joke. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.760 And so they licked their wounds and they went back 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.000 to Victoria to do it all again. And what happened, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.440 as most people know, is that Renzella, having broken down 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.560 his good horse code of pen, went and bought another 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.640 good horse called regal Vista. And regal Vista was a 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.360 bit too good. He was almost a champion. He won 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.360 a list of stakes he'd won or run placings in 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:43.120 the most elite sprint races in Victoria. He was one 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.839 of Australia's best ten sprinters probably and he'd hit a 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.960 sort of age about six year old, where he could 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:56.400 be bought. And Renzela paid what was then a considerable 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.839 some for him six thousand dollars, which these days might 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.800 be like paying one hundred and twenty thousand something like that, 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.760 and he had a plan to ring him in I 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.320 think in South Australia. But meanwhile he wanted to ring 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:14.280 him in at Casteradon in Western Victoria. And as everyone knows, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.960 that is the ring in where Rick Renzella came unstuck 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.920 because he ran him under the name Royal School. Royal 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.039 School was another one of his many slow black horses 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.360 that looked like CODEA Penn. It looked like Code Penn, 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.640 but it did not look like regal Vista. Bad mistake. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.240 The other thing about regal Vista, he was, apart from 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.560 being a really good looking, handsome horse with a beautiful head, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.000 the sort of horse that race govers and racing people 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.359 would recognize, he had a big scar on his rump 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:48.919 and it was from a paddock accident as a young horse, 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.600 and the scar was quite distinctive. If you'd seen him 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.000 once somewhere, you'd know him from the scar. And of 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.640 course at Castidon Races, this wise old trainer Jim Serk 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.640 sees the horse and knows it's regal Vista, backs the 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.279 horse and that starts a bit of a rush among 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.480 the bookies, which of course really throws out the re 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.120 Renzala plan of backing it on the tab in doubles, 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.480 which is what he's done, because the money goes on 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:24.360 on course. Jim Serk started a gold rush when wise 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.320 old bookmakers saw Jim Serke backing this horse, they thought, oh, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.920 I don't know what's happened here, but if Serk's backing it, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.040 we should, so they'd send their runners over to back 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.200 it with other people, and then other punters would notice 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.320 that it was being backed and the price was being 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.800 wound in shorter, and so the more money that went on, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.200 the shorter got, the shorter got, the more money went on. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.920 And of course when it wins, as it does beating 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:55.000 an absolute crackerjack local bush champion trained by a very 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.800 fine trainer from the Western district, these stewards are most 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.680 interested in the events because it's been backed off the map. 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:07.920 It's one and it would appear to be highly suspicious, 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:13.000 particularly because Jim Serk, after collecting his winnings from the bookmakers, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.240 went to Jack Barling, the trainer of the runner up 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.600 the horses should have won the race, and said, I 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.240 think you were beaten by a ring in, and so 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.600 that put the cat among the pigeons, and that would 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.480 lead to Renzala being charged and getting struck out for 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.520 life and getting jailed. It would lead to Steve Wood 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.800 being struck out for I think twenty years plus two 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.480 years for something else, a penalty that he actually had 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.800 overturned on appeal. In the end, Wood had his penalty 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:52.280 overturned and was able to return to riding, which was amazing. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.560 But Renzala was in big trouble. And the second part 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.120 of the Steve Wood story, the one that's not so 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.120 well known, is that Steve of Wood later takes up training. 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.480 He rode successfully as a jockey for a short time 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.840 again after the scandal, but he got injured in a fall. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.400 Had he not been injured in that fall, he probably 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.800 would have ridden on for some years and gone okay, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.520 because it basically sort of been forgiven by the racing establishment, 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:27.120 and a very kind trainer called Brian Courtney offered to 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:32.560 rehabilitate his reputation by using him as i think a 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:37.200 secondary stable jockey, so that when other trainers saw and 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.480 other owners saw Brian Courtney putting Wood on his horses, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.120 they thought, well, if it's good enough for Brian courtney's 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.760 good enough for us. And for a while Steve Wood 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:51.040 rode fairly successfully against the odds really in Melbourne, but 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.960 then he had a fall and that fall kept him 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.960 out for many weeks, a couple of months say, and 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.640 at the end of that period, trainers have moved on. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.000 He'd been replaced on good horses with other riders. And 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.120 it's the oldest story in racing. Once you're off the 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.000 scene for a while and lose the plumb rides, it's 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.800 very hard to get back on. And for jockeys, really, 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.800 the wise jockeys know that the best horse mostly wins 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.520 the race, regardless of the jockey. The great art of 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.439 jockeying is to jockey your way onto the best horse. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.160 You need to push the other jockeys out of the 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.640 way and talk your way into riding the better horses, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.600 and that is the way the system actually works. Steve 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.000 would realize his time was up as a rider. He 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.920 got sick of it. He took out a trainer's license. 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.240 Steve Wood later remarried as he would a couple of times, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:47.160 I think four times, and he took out a trainer's license, 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.160 and he was up in the Northeast. I think he 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:54.679 was at Aubrey where he finished his riding career and 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.760 started his training career at Aubrey, and he was within 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.200 no time, as they say in racing, eating the paint 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.160 off the walls. He had a big bill down at 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.520 the feed shop. He had farious bills. He had bills 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.160 for renting loose boxes. He had bills everywhere, and he 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.680 couldn't pay them. And he thought, well, there's only one 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.720 thing for this. I better go in for a ring in. 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.679 So i'ld mate Stevie Wood shorter money. He takes up 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.800 ring ins just as Rick Wenzela had. In fact he 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:29.600 was probably a bit better at them in some respects. 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:34.600 He took a horse called Tilant up to Orange, and 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.600 of course he did have a better horse to fill 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:43.240 in for Tilant, and it won the race, and they 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.560 cleaned up about twenty three thousand dollars on the punt 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.840 and cleaned out the bookmakers, all the local bookies at 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.319 the Orange races, and they drove home to all be 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.760 very happy. But of course, you know, after paying off 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.559 a few bills and life goes on, they decided they 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.960 need to do it again. And I actually think he 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.040 did three. He did three in a row. But the 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.840 most notorious one that Steve Wood did was he got 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:15.439 hold of a slow horse called Foden. I remember this horse, Foden, 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.000 and he obtained a much better horse. I think he 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:23.280 had somebody else by it. It was called Nordica, a Nordica. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:29.640 They both chestnut horses, light chestnuts, similar type sprinters, but 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.199 Nordica was lengths better than Foden, and Foden was actually 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.679 pretty well a pitney horse from down in South Gippsland. 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.319 He bought it from the Hill family, I think, one 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.760 of whom later became a Stuart Mark Hill. And Nordica, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.000 funnily enough, came from a trainer up in the Arra 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.640 Valley called Wood, no relation to Steve would just by chance, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:58.760 and they looked reasonably like each other, and he took 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:04.160 them to broken him, and the good horse was substituted 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.839 for the slow horse and ran as the slow horse. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.320 But unlike the Renzala wrought, which was fairly sophisticated, the 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:17.040 Wrenzala thing relied on having false registration papers so that 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:21.040 when the stewards checked each runner, they could look at 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.720 its brands and then look at the registration papers to 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.400 make sure it matched. And Renzale's great art as a 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:32.640 crook was to have beautifully forged registration papers so that 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.840 the papers matched that horse, regardless of the name on it. 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.839 The brand markings and all that matched that horse, which 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:42.880 made it a pretty good trick. And that was a 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.720 trick that was only knocked out later when they brought 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:51.520 in a more sophisticated way of identifying the horses. What 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.680 Steve Wood did he didn't have access to good forged 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.160 registration papers, and what he did was the more old 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.240 fashioned ring in, where he would take two horses to 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.960 the races in a horse float and switch them. And 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:11.439 so he would lead the slow horse in and give 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.520 it a look around and give it a pick of 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.120 grass or whatever, and then lead it back and put 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.240 it on the float and come out with the fast 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.000 horse with the slow horses rug on, so it looked 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.400 the same let's say, same head collar, looking as close 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.640 to the other one as it could. And when it 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.680 was racetime, the theory was that the stewards either wouldn't 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.600 check them properly, or they would have checked the slow 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.800 horses brands early in the day and then would assume 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.680 that everything was okay, and providing they didn't check it 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.240 again after the race, you were home and host. And 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.520 what would happen is if they pulled off a ring 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.360 in successfully, they would lead the horse away after the 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.120 race fairly smartly and pretend to take it to be 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.920 hosed down, and then they would take it out and 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:02.840 put it in the float and somebody would drive it 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.320 away and get rid of it. Either take both horses 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.520 away or take the fast horse away was the way 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.760 to go. And that was a pretty complicated thing to 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.840 get away with, except you know where, you've got a 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.720 meeting where the steward's a bit lazier or a bit slack, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.160 or having a few drinks or whatever it might be. 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.000 And on this particular day at Broken Hill, they've pulled 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.840 off this ring in, they've backed the winner, they've got 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:35.239 the money. But one of the visiting people at Brokenhill, 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.080 would you believe, is a man called Bill Brewer. And 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:43.160 Bill Brewer was by this stage a mid career racing stewart. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:45.880 He's a man in by this stage, he's probably in 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.680 his forties, and he's quite an experienced steward. And he 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:54.920 sees that this horse has won at big odds and 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.440 won a lot of money, and it's been backed, and 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:02.160 he's instantly suspicious, particularly when he sees that it's been 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.320 led around by Stephen Wood. Now he knew who Stephen 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.000 Wood was because Bill Brewer had been the young steward 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.560 at Castidon when Rinzala had pulled the Regal Vista Royal 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.760 School wrought several years earlier, and he was suddenly on 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:23.880 full alert and realized that probably something was up, and 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:28.400 he warned the local stewarts and there was an inquiry 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.960 and next thing, they've unearthed both horses, and you know, 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.360 the brands don't match, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:41.000 and Stevie Wood was banged up. He was charged with 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.600 serious offenses. The racing detectives came and saw him and 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.360 interviewed him all this sort of stuff, and long story short, 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.360 Stevie Wood, who had got away with two ring ins 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.840 on his third one, he didn't get away with it, 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.240 and there was evidence led about the earlier ones because 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.560 bookies put their hands up and said, we remember when 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.480 he won so and so we think it's a ringing, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.119 so on and so forth, and he ended up doing time. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.720 He did time. He was locked up in Broken Hill. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.200 Then he was sent to I think graft and Jail, 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.760 where he did time with serious crooks, including some that 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:24.080 he got quite friendly with because he was a jockey. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.240 They quite liked him because jockeys is sort of popular 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.600 with crooks, because crooks love gambling and the reason he 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.320 was kicked out of Broken Hill Jail so quickly was 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:39.200 that on his first day there, he was adopted by 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.840 these three big, young, tough blugs that were in there 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:47.800 for something, probably fighting or thievery or both. And I 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.280 think might of them might have been a local rugby 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.080 league player or something like that. So he had a 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.080 little bit of local knowledge, and the prison officers like 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:01.679 this young guy, local boys, and after lights, Stevie says, 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.159 the guy below him in the bunk below him bangs 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.960 on his bunk because Steve's in the top one, being 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.199 the smallest guy, and he thinks, oh god, what's going 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.160 to happen here? Will kill me? And he said, no, mate, 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.600 we're going for Just drop down on the floor where 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:20.800 the screws can't see through the so the peepole and 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.280 our friendly screws will open the door for us. And 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.359 he goes, oh, no, I don't want to be in 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.440 an escape. I'll be in all sorts of trouble. I 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.000 don't want to be a wanted man. He said, no problem, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.760 no problem, it's okay, and so he said just stay low. 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.320 So when they get out in the corridor, the guy, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:39.800 his fellow prisoner is in front of him, and he 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.080 drops down low and crawls on his hands and kne's 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.480 really quietly along under the level of the peepoles in 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.040 the other cells. Now it's pretty late at night, it's 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.120 after lights out. Lights out might be nine o'clock, let's say. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.399 And they creep down to the other end of the 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.320 corridor and they see a pair of blue troup houses 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.640 and black shiny shoes. It's a prison officer, but it's okay. 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.920 It's the tame prison officer, the friend, and he lets 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.679 them out of this door, and they sneak out on 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.680 their hands and knees, and once they get out into 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:17.760 the yard, they stand up and Steve's completely amused and 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.080 puzzled and alarmed. But there he is with these three 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.600 young blokes and he thinks they're leading a prison break. 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:25.520 And they said, no, no, it's all right, mate, don't worry. 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.040 So they go over to a side gate and broke 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.240 an hill jail and it's conveniently open. They open it, 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.560 and one of them bolts down to the local pub 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.760 before closing time and gets a dozen cans of Stubbies 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.920 one or the other of beer and brings it back 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.520 and they sit in the park and they drink beer 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.280 in the park until just before midnight when the shift ends, 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.880 when the prison officers shift will end. Then they've got 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.200 to go back in, close the door behind them, sneak 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.600 back into their corridor, drop down again and sneak along 0:19:57.840 --> 0:19:59.879 so no one else sees them, and back into their 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.160 else before the shift ends and the Friendly Water goes 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:08.240 off duty and less friendly Water starts again. That route 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.840 was discovered within a short time because some knark down 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.639 the street saw one of the guys buying beer and 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.840 realized who he was and dubbed them in and that 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.919 is when they were all sent from Broken Hill to 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.199 higher security jail, in this case Grafton. And so in 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.680 the end, Stevie Wood, the promising apprentice jockey who went 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.520 to the dark side, ended up serving time in jail 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:38.040 with hardened criminals, including the one I think they called 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.920 him the Woolworths bomber. He was a guy that attempted 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.920 to extort something like a million dollars out of Woolworth's 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.840 by threatening to blow up the store. He met all 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.520 these sort of guys in jail. He peld up with 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.120 one of them and they started One of Australia's first 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.720 tipping services, and when he came out of jail, he 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:03.000 realized that racing, even if he wanted to pursue racing 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.760 any more, racing was probably not going to allow him 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.159 to be a licensed person, and so Stevie would in 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.159 his late thirties. I think on his third marriage. I 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.760 think his second wife decided she'd leave during the ringing 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.240 scandal and the jail scandal. He took up working construction 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:27.320 and he learned enough about construction and about business to 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:29.639 make his way in the world. And he ended up 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:35.640 owning a motel or more than one, perhaps up on 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.280 the border, and ultimately ended up on the Gold Coast. 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:46.240 And now he leads a respectable quiet life. He's worked hard, 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.199 he's made reasonable money. He and his wife, who is 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:54.080 a Thai national, have a nice property in Thailand, and 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:00.720 they owned some apartments in Queensland and they divide their 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.159 time between the two places. But that is one of 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:09.440 those rare stories where people who went wrong get their 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.560 life back on track and do not end up dead 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:18.560 before their time or in jail. Little Stevie Wood got 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:27.600 out in time. Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.800 a Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:36.040 producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:41.840 go to Heroldsun dot com dot au, forward slash Andrew 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:47.360 Rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news Podcasts 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.960 sold at news dot com dot au. That is all 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.760 one word news podcasts sold And if you want further 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:01.400 information about this episode links in the description