Speaker 1: These pictures, they're all black horses winning races. And Rerenzalez says,
Speaker 1: have a closer look, says, listening here a little prick,
Speaker 1: you just jump to the front and it'll win easy.
Speaker 1: He's two envelopes and there's a thin one and there's.
Speaker 2: A fat one.
Speaker 1: If you choose the thin one, that's great. You put
Speaker 1: it in your pocket and after today we don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. If you take the fat one, you're one
Speaker 1: of the team. I'm Andrew Rule. This is life and crimes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes crime entwines itself with sport or racing or rock
Speaker 1: and roll. And today we're going to have a closer
Speaker 1: look at the history of a criminal called Rick Renzela,
Speaker 1: who got mixed up in the racing game many years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: Rick Rerenzela, he's no longer with us. Some long term
Speaker 1: listeners will have heard about him in the past because
Speaker 1: after he died, we went to town on talking about him.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think we suggested that at his funeral
Speaker 1: that someone checked the coffin to make sure that he
Speaker 1: was in it. That was an exaggeration, but it gives
Speaker 1: you an insight into the sort of person Rick Rensela
Speaker 1: was and He was described by a colleague of mine
Speaker 1: once in print as a man of many parts, most
Speaker 1: of them stolen, which was another great description. Rick Renzella's
Speaker 1: real name was a Vittoria Rensela, and he would have
Speaker 1: grown up as a little boy in Melbourne, speaking Italian
Speaker 1: at home and English at school, and he would have
Speaker 1: been one of that generation of migrant kids who had
Speaker 1: to do the best he could in all ways. And
Speaker 1: instead of working hard and becoming an honest person in
Speaker 1: business or in professions or trades, he went the other way.
Speaker 1: And as a young man he saw the inside of
Speaker 1: boys homes and jails, and he did a bit of
Speaker 1: time for crimes of dishonesty before he turned his mind
Speaker 1: to the sort of legitimate business of second hand car
Speaker 1: dealing and punting. Now these days, secondhand car.
Speaker 2: Dealers are pretty respectable people, because cars these days are
Speaker 2: by and large not as expensive as they once were,
Speaker 2: and they're far more reliable than they once were, and
Speaker 2: by and large they are not sold second, third and
Speaker 2: fourth hand on used car lots the way they used
Speaker 2: to be, and so there.
Speaker 1: Are far fewer dodgy car dealers these days than they
Speaker 1: were back when Rick Loronzela got into the business, and
Speaker 1: he was a very dodgy car dealer, but his real love,
Speaker 1: his real interest, was to beat the system, particularly with
Speaker 1: punting punting on horses, and he made enough money selling
Speaker 1: cars from his car yard down the Nepean Highway to
Speaker 1: be able to invest some of it in racehorses. Now
Speaker 1: I use the word invest lightly. It's not really an investment,
Speaker 1: except Rick thought it was. He thought he could beat
Speaker 1: the system, and indeed, for a while he did. And
Speaker 1: the story goes that one day he was out looking
Speaker 1: at his racehorses at his relatively small time trainers yard.
Speaker 1: His trainer was a guy called McNamara, Alan McNamara, and
Speaker 1: he trained a bit further down the Pen Highway, I
Speaker 1: think originally at mentone or that area, and had stables
Speaker 1: in his backyard. And one day, the story goes, Rick
Speaker 1: Renzella went outside and he patted a black horse, believing
Speaker 1: it to be his black horse code of Penn. It
Speaker 1: actually wasn't. It was another black horse entirely. And I
Speaker 1: suspect that that day Rick Renzella got the idea that
Speaker 1: if the owner of a black horse couldn't easily distinguish
Speaker 1: between it and another one, that looked a bit similar,
Speaker 1: then perhaps it would be a good way to pull
Speaker 1: a ring in to use black horses. And starting from
Speaker 1: that premise, mind you, Rick was pretty dishonest and pretty
Speaker 1: cagy and pretty cunning, so he wouldn't need much encouragement
Speaker 1: to get involved in such a thing. He started to
Speaker 1: buy more black horses, and he had this good horse
Speaker 1: code of Penn, who was good enough to win races
Speaker 1: in town and to run placings in town. He was
Speaker 1: a pretty smart animal. And Rick bought more horses that
Speaker 1: were related to that horse. They were sired by, that is,
Speaker 1: fathered by a particular English stadion that was standing in Australia,
Speaker 1: a horse called I think King Tudor, and King Tudor
Speaker 1: was known as a black horse. Often in racing they
Speaker 1: call him dark browns, but most of us would call
Speaker 1: him black. And he he wasn't a great stadient, He
Speaker 1: wasn't a great sire of winners. But he did throw
Speaker 1: a lot of horses that looked like himself. They were
Speaker 1: black or dark brown, they didn't have any or much
Speaker 1: white hair on them, and they tended to look a
Speaker 1: bit like each other. So you know, if he had
Speaker 1: a slightly Roman nose, so did many of his progeny.
Speaker 1: He was quite a dominant sire in that sense, and
Speaker 1: so Rick bought quite a few progeny of that stadient,
Speaker 1: and he bought ones that did look like each other.
Speaker 1: And only one of them was the good horse code
Speaker 1: of Pen. The others were relatively ordinary animals. One was
Speaker 1: called Briander Hall, one was called Damien Park, who was
Speaker 1: a full brother of code Pen. He was so keen
Speaker 1: on them he actually bought both King Tudor and joy Gay,
Speaker 1: that being the sire and dam that his father and
Speaker 1: mother of code Pen and Damien Park. And so he
Speaker 1: really ended up with his whole family of horses. He
Speaker 1: kept breeding and buying these black horses that looked like
Speaker 1: each other, and he had a motive, and his motive
Speaker 1: was to pull ringings, and that, of course, is the
Speaker 1: substitute one horse for another. Now, the person that told
Speaker 1: me the ins and outs of this story in detail
Speaker 1: is a former jockey called Stephen Wood, and Stevie Wood
Speaker 1: is an enormously well liked fella. He's now in his
Speaker 1: early seventies. No one says a bad word about him,
Speaker 1: even the police who ended up prosecuting him and ultimately
Speaker 1: sent him to jail for defrauding the public. They actually
Speaker 1: liked him. He's an engaging fellow and for a guy
Speaker 1: who did do some dishonest things, he's actually a very
Speaker 1: honest sort of guy. And later on, interestingly, he did
Speaker 1: very well in business outside racing. But as a youngster
Speaker 1: he was a poor kid. His dad had been a
Speaker 1: jumping jockey who broke his neck riding over jumps and
Speaker 1: had become an alcoholic and then dried out. But Steve
Speaker 1: was one of a big family of poor kids who
Speaker 1: grew up around Caulfield, and he just did the best
Speaker 1: he could. And when he was a very small boy,
Speaker 1: I think he was only thirteen, but they pretended he
Speaker 1: was older. He was apprenticed to a small time trainer
Speaker 1: who was quite a good trainer, quite a good man.
Speaker 1: But young Steve was small for his age, which is
Speaker 1: why his parents thought he could be a jockey. And
Speaker 1: he was so young at this point that he was
Speaker 1: signed up as I suspect a fourteen year old or
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old, but he was actually a year younger.
Speaker 1: And so when he rode in his first race, which
Speaker 1: was in the city, would you believe he wrote in
Speaker 1: his first race at Mooney Valley against legends of the
Speaker 1: turf such as Roy Higgins and Harry White and all
Speaker 1: these great riders. He was so young that he hadn't
Speaker 1: even hit puberty. And he told me he was so
Speaker 1: embarrassed in the jockey's room because he was a little,
Speaker 1: tiny kid who looked like a Grade six kid, and
Speaker 1: he went and hit in the toilets to get changed.
Speaker 1: Before his first ride, he'd only had a couple of
Speaker 1: jump outs. He'd ridden in a couple of trials down
Speaker 1: at the Epsom Track, I think it was, and on
Speaker 1: this occasion they just sent him out there to ride
Speaker 1: in a race, and he was terrified, he said he
Speaker 1: to this day cannot remember the first half of the
Speaker 1: race how it went. Apparently his horse jumped out slowly
Speaker 1: because he was hanging onto its mouth. He didn't really
Speaker 1: know how to ride it well, and he nearly fell
Speaker 1: off and followed the field and it didn't look great.
Speaker 1: But time past, Stevie Wood grew up a bit. He
Speaker 1: started to win a few races and he would be
Speaker 1: sent to the country tracks and he would win a
Speaker 1: few races, and back in those days racing was not
Speaker 1: as big a an industry as it is now. They
Speaker 1: didn't race every day of the week the way they
Speaker 1: do now. Back in those days, they would race a
Speaker 1: few meetings in the country on weekends. Of course, they
Speaker 1: would have a Saturday city meeting, and they'd have a
Speaker 1: midweek meeting, and they'd be the odd midweek meeting in
Speaker 1: the country. So most jockeys, the big good jockeys, would
Speaker 1: ride midweek in Melbourne Saturday Melbourne, not go to the
Speaker 1: bush much maybe where it be maybe Geelong, but not
Speaker 1: too far. And the lesser lights, especially apprentices, would go
Speaker 1: to those country meetings, So they'd ride midweek at Baneala
Speaker 1: or Wangorada or Sale or Bensdale or wherever it might
Speaker 1: be on Saturday meetings at those same sort of venues,
Speaker 1: and little Stevie would picked up his act and he
Speaker 1: got to be a much better job. He tells me
Speaker 1: that his friend and contemporary Paul Jarman, was a star jockey.
Speaker 1: He was a bit older and a bit better, and
Speaker 1: he was a top writer who outrode his apprentice claim
Speaker 1: while still an apprentice. He rode so many winners that
Speaker 1: he could no longer claim the weight allowance that apprentices
Speaker 1: get the other one at the time was his friend
Speaker 1: Lye Hope, who was a very good young jockey. But
Speaker 1: Steve Wood was probably running third or fourth behind those
Speaker 1: good guys, and so he made a bit of a
Speaker 1: name for himself. Stevie. You know, like all young jockeys,
Speaker 1: he grows up fast, he gets a bit heavier, and
Speaker 1: he develops a few bad habits. His trainer that his boss,
Speaker 1: trainer was a guy who didn't drink or smoke and
Speaker 1: didn't like his apprentices staying out late or staying out
Speaker 1: running around with bad people and all the backslappers that
Speaker 1: get involved in racing. And Stevie got involved with going
Speaker 1: to parties and getting on the drink and chasing girls
Speaker 1: and all that, and his boss said that's no good,
Speaker 1: that's no way to behave. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: ride for me, and being a smart ass sixteen year
Speaker 1: old little Stevie would decided that he would leave his
Speaker 1: boss and go and ride freelance. Now that was not
Speaker 1: a great decision. He should have pulled his horns in
Speaker 1: and done the right thing, but he didn't. And what
Speaker 1: happened was he went from being a pretty good city
Speaker 1: based apprentice who used to get some rides in town
Speaker 1: and win a few in town as well as on
Speaker 1: the country circuit. He ended up taking a job from
Speaker 1: a famous old Bendigo train called George Daniels. George Daniels
Speaker 1: had been a lighthorseman in World War One and he
Speaker 1: came back to Bendigo. I think he had part of
Speaker 1: his foot shot off. He was probably a bit of
Speaker 1: a war hero really, and he trained both gallopers and trotters.
Speaker 1: And I think if somebody bothers to look up the records,
Speaker 1: I'll find that George Daniels one not only group races,
Speaker 1: black type races with gallopers, notably the Great Sailor's Guide,
Speaker 1: a famous galloper back in the sixties, and he won
Speaker 1: group races with harness horces trotting horses.
Speaker 2: So he was a.
Speaker 1: Great all round trainer and a very good man and
Speaker 1: well thought of. He said to Stevie, you're not traveling
Speaker 1: that well down in town now you've left your trainer.
Speaker 1: Are You're not getting many city rides. You've now just
Speaker 1: got married because you had to, And this is true.
Speaker 1: Stevie was by this stage nineteen and married and had
Speaker 1: a child on the way. He said, why don't you
Speaker 1: come to Bendigo. I can't offer you a lot of
Speaker 1: money as a retainer, but I'll give you enough to
Speaker 1: pay your rent each week. It might have been twenty
Speaker 1: bucks back then it was enough to rent a house.
Speaker 1: Will guarantee you plenty of rides and therefore plenty of
Speaker 1: winners because you're a good country rider, and I'm happy
Speaker 1: to put you on all my best chances. And so
Speaker 1: when it gets to nineteen seventy one, Stevie Wood has
Speaker 1: been riding for maybe three or four years. He's at Bendigo.
Speaker 1: He's doing the best he can. He's riding a few
Speaker 1: country winners. He's not as enthusiastic as he used to
Speaker 1: be because he knows he's sort of closed the door
Speaker 1: on being a successful city rider. And he gets a
Speaker 1: call this day from this trainer McNamara, who he didn't
Speaker 1: really know well, who said, I want to book you
Speaker 1: to ride a horse at Bendigo on Corfield Cup Day. Now,
Speaker 1: the big race meeting at Bendio on Corfield Cup Day
Speaker 1: was an annual event, attracted a lot of people, a
Speaker 1: lot of horses, and a lot of bookmakers, very strong meeting.
Speaker 1: Stevie accepts the ride because, you know, why not. He's
Speaker 1: on a thing called Brianda Hall. He's never really hurt it.
Speaker 1: But he looks up the form and it's going to
Speaker 1: be a forty to one shot. It's not much good,
Speaker 1: you know, it's last start at ben nowhere and here
Speaker 1: it is in a stronger grade against better horses and
Speaker 1: it's basically the long shot of the field. I think
Speaker 1: it was forty to one. He says, yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: just for the losing fee. When he gets the races,
Speaker 1: it's just another thing he's going to do that day.
Speaker 1: He's not taking much notice when the trainer of Brianda Hall,
Speaker 1: Alan McNamara, comes into the jockey's room. He brings in
Speaker 1: the colors, the colors that you wear, the silk colors,
Speaker 1: and he's there to pick up the saddle from Steve
Speaker 1: Wood to saddle the horse. And this is a transaction
Speaker 1: that happens, you know, one hundred and twenty times at
Speaker 1: every race meeting. Trainers come in, they talked to the jockey,
Speaker 1: say and the colors, they get the saddle, I saddle
Speaker 1: the horse. It's routine. But Stevie Wood notices that Alan
Speaker 1: McNamara is very nervous. He's stuttering and stammering and he's
Speaker 1: sweating and he can't sort of make it much sense.
Speaker 1: And Steve Wood sort of shrugs it oft and sins, well,
Speaker 1: work cares. This thing hasn't got a chance anyway. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter if he tells me how to ride it.
Speaker 1: It can't help. So he goes out and he gets
Speaker 1: legged up. Now the funny thing is that Alan McNamara
Speaker 1: doesn't speak to him. It's the owner of the horse,
Speaker 1: a man called Rick Renzla, that Steve Wood had met
Speaker 1: once before, had ridden a winner for him at Banella,
Speaker 1: I think, up in the northeast. And he remembered that
Speaker 1: Rick Wenzella had paid him a big sling. He must
Speaker 1: have backed this winner in the northeast and at one
Speaker 1: and Renzala had slung him serious money, several hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which was a lot of done in those days. It
Speaker 1: was like getting several thousand dollars now. And so he
Speaker 1: was kindly disposed towards Rerenzala. But Renzella grabs him, leads
Speaker 1: him over to the horse Branda Hall, or the horse
Speaker 1: that is supposed to be Branda Hall, and Legimutin says,
Speaker 1: listen here, a little prick, you just jump to the
Speaker 1: front and it'll win easy. Just stay out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Jump to the front, stay out of trouble. It'll win easy.
Speaker 1: At this point, Stevie Wood looks at the bedding toe
Speaker 1: to odds on the big board and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's forty to one, and he goes, really, what makes
Speaker 1: you think that? Ranzela says, listen, just do it. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you words to that effect.
Speaker 2: Pretty tough, pretty brisk, pretty.
Speaker 1: Brusk, and Wood just picks up the reins, rides a
Speaker 1: horse out on the track and he gets over on
Speaker 1: its neck and acts it along with the straight to
Speaker 1: the start and he looks up the toe board. It
Speaker 1: hasn't changed. It stayed the same. So he thinks this
Speaker 1: is strange. They think it's going to win, but no
Speaker 1: one's backing it, at least on the track. So he
Speaker 1: goes round to the start and it jumps well, he
Speaker 1: jumps it out and it goes to the front. And
Speaker 1: the further they go, the further ahead it gets, which
Speaker 1: was probably a tactical error in some respects. It was
Speaker 1: a distant race. It was I think two thousand meters
Speaker 1: as we say now. And when he comes around to
Speaker 1: the head of the strait the second time, because it's
Speaker 1: a full circuit plus a bit. He said, I'm flat
Speaker 1: out hearing the other horses hoofbeats. Normally in a race,
Speaker 1: you can hear the other jockeys talking to each other,
Speaker 1: you can hear the hoofbeads, you can hear the whips,
Speaker 1: you can hear everything. He said, I'm out so far
Speaker 1: in front that I can't hear anything. And I look
Speaker 1: over my shoulder and I realize I'm lengths in front.
Speaker 1: But my horse just keeps going. He said, I've got
Speaker 1: a lap full of horses. Jockeys say, it's a great feeling.
Speaker 1: You're in the straight in front and your horse is
Speaker 1: full of running. So I just let him stride along.
Speaker 1: And he said, I think it was a record margin
Speaker 1: that year. I think it won by twelve or fifteen lengths.
Speaker 1: The horse wins, he goes in, picks up the that
Speaker 1: goes into to do correct weight, and he's called him
Speaker 1: by the stewarts as the trainer and the owner, and
Speaker 1: he wisely decides that he need not share with the
Speaker 1: stewards the information that the owner told him it would
Speaker 1: bolt in. And he says, I got no idea I
Speaker 1: just thought I was going around for the losing ride
Speaker 1: money and it went really well. I've got no idea why.
Speaker 1: Of course, at the back of his mind he's thinking
Speaker 1: that these guys have hit the horse with a go
Speaker 1: fast drug, one of the early drugs that started to
Speaker 1: be used back in that era. And he's sure that
Speaker 1: it's a drug thing and that the stewards will be
Speaker 1: on the case. But he's puzzled because he realizes that
Speaker 1: it hasn't been backed. Of course, there's no sign that's
Speaker 1: went back. It won the race at forty to one,
Speaker 1: no money's gone on, and he thinks, well, it's a miss.
Speaker 1: And Rick Renzela said to the stewart's last start, you
Speaker 1: know my horse here we got its tongue over the
Speaker 1: bit and didn't run well. It choked down, it couldn't
Speaker 1: gallop properly, and I was very confident today that it
Speaker 1: would go better.
Speaker 2: Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: This is all so much eyewash. The trainer is just
Speaker 1: nodding and smiling and agreeing with Rick Renzelle, and the
Speaker 1: stewards dismissed the inquiry. They decide it's just one of
Speaker 1: those weird things that happens, and the main reason they
Speaker 1: dismissed the inquiry is that there's no sign of the
Speaker 1: money going on. Later on, Renzella talks to Steve Wood,
Speaker 1: and Wood says, well, I don't know much, but I
Speaker 1: know that if a horse starts at forty to one,
Speaker 1: you haven't put anything on it, and therefore nobody's got
Speaker 1: any money out of it.
Speaker 2: You have to back it.
Speaker 1: And Renzelle says, you come to a barbecue at my
Speaker 1: place tomorrow down in this address in Brighton, hands him
Speaker 1: an address and we'll have a whack up of the
Speaker 1: money and I'll explain it to you then. And young
Speaker 1: Stevie Wood sees to be young wife. We'll be going
Speaker 1: to a barbecue down in Brighton tomorrow, Sunday barbecue, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to miss it because I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're up to, but there's plenty of money in
Speaker 1: it by the sound of it. So they get in
Speaker 1: the blue Pontiac that Rick Grinsela had at some stage
Speaker 1: earlier sold to young Steve Would and they drive down
Speaker 1: the road in this thing that's like a waterbed cross
Speaker 1: with a cabin cruiser, and they pull up at the
Speaker 1: address in Brighton, and it's a nice house in a
Speaker 1: street full of very nice houses, you know, doctor's lawyers,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. And he goes in and
Speaker 1: there's missus Rinzale. She was a very handsome woman, beautifully dressed,
Speaker 1: very polite. Da Da Da da da. And there's the trainer,
Speaker 1: Allan McNamara, looking much happier than he had at the races.
Speaker 1: And there's a guy called Rookie who was Renzale's driver,
Speaker 1: which is code for a bodyguard. And Rookie was a
Speaker 1: tough guy that Steve would actually got to like. He
Speaker 1: sort of liked him. And he said there was a
Speaker 1: guy there called Fred from Sydney. He said, I never
Speaker 1: knew his real name. He was just Fred from Sydney.
Speaker 1: Always had a gun under his arm, under his coat,
Speaker 1: and he said I didn't like him at all. He
Speaker 1: was quite spooky. And there was a few others. He
Speaker 1: said it was a big car dealer there, well known
Speaker 1: car dealer that used to advertise cars on television at
Speaker 1: that time. He said, I don't know what he was
Speaker 1: doing there, but he was there, and a few other people.
Speaker 1: And at some point during the barbecue, Renzalez had a
Speaker 1: couple of bees, and he says, Stevie, you better come
Speaker 1: over and talk to him in the office. So he
Speaker 1: leads him into the office in the house and into
Speaker 1: his study thing, and he says, you want to know
Speaker 1: what happened yesterday? He said, look at these pictures on
Speaker 1: the wall. And Wood looks at the wall and goes, oh,
Speaker 1: there's Code of Penn Flemington or whatever he did. And
Speaker 1: there's Code Pen again winning somewhere. And there's Brianda Hall
Speaker 1: at such and such, and there's Damian Park at such
Speaker 1: and such. These pictures, they're all black horses winning races,
Speaker 1: and Werenzealous says, have a closer look. And he has
Speaker 1: a close look and he realizes it's all the same
Speaker 1: horse that in fact, there are supposed to be three
Speaker 1: different horses, and these photos on the walls, but only
Speaker 1: one of them is in each frame. In other words,
Speaker 1: these are ringings. And that is when the penny drops
Speaker 1: for young Steve Wood that it's a ringing, not a
Speaker 1: drug thing. And he said, but Rick, how did you
Speaker 1: get money out of it? You didn't back it, And
Speaker 1: Rick says, so I did, but I didn't back it.
Speaker 1: On course, what I did was, you know what the
Speaker 1: of course daily double is with the tab and he
Speaker 1: said yeah. He said, well, what I do is I
Speaker 1: couple up my sure thing in the second leg with
Speaker 1: restarter in the first leg. I back each combination from
Speaker 1: the first leg with my horse in the second, and
Speaker 1: that way, no matter what wins the first leg. And
Speaker 1: you hope it's a longer shot. You hope it's at
Speaker 1: ten to one shot, not a hot favorite. We've got
Speaker 1: it in the second with a horse that no one
Speaker 1: else in the world has backed. It's just an aberration.
Speaker 1: And so we scooped the pool and he said, I've
Speaker 1: got twenty six thousand dollars out of the pool yesterday.
Speaker 1: And in that year nineteen seventy one, a year that
Speaker 1: I sadly can remember, twenty six thousand dollars was the
Speaker 1: price of two good houses in a country town. And
Speaker 1: I mean by that a country town like Sale or
Speaker 1: Bensdale to Ragon not owe you no somewhere. And it
Speaker 1: was the price of a pretty good house and maybe
Speaker 1: a car in outer suburban Melbourne. It was serious money
Speaker 1: that could change a young jockey's life, that sort of money.
Speaker 1: These days, the comparison houses are worth so much more now.
Speaker 1: But you know these days. You probably need to win
Speaker 1: three quarters of a million dollars or a million dollars
Speaker 1: to have the same actual effect on your life. Rinzala says,
Speaker 1: so you understand now, And Steve would says all right,
Speaker 1: and Rinzale says, now, I don't expect you necessarily to
Speaker 1: want to stick with the crew here. But he's two
Speaker 1: envelopes and there's a thin one and there's a fat one.
Speaker 1: If you choose a thin one, that's great. You put
Speaker 1: it in your pocket and after today we don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. If you take the fat one, you're one
Speaker 1: of the team. And little Stevie Wood made a faithful decision.
Speaker 1: He took the fat one. I mean, he's nineteen or
Speaker 1: twenty or whatever. I think they've got a little kid,
Speaker 1: and his wife's pregnant again, and you know, he's just
Speaker 1: young and a bit silly and like most of us,
Speaker 1: a big greedy. So he took the fat one, and
Speaker 1: being a jockey is a risk taket. They have another
Speaker 1: sausage and a beer, and he and his wife hop
Speaker 1: in the car for the long trip back to Bendigo.
Speaker 1: And they hop in and they drive around the corner
Speaker 1: and they pull up. He said, we've got to open
Speaker 1: that envelope, and he tears it open, and his wife,
Speaker 1: who was a very respectable young woman who was well
Speaker 1: brought up and didn't swear, she said, shit, shit, shit.
Speaker 1: She'd never seen so much money as was in this envelope. Now,
Speaker 1: it must have been in the thousands, like two or
Speaker 1: three or four or five thousand dollars. It was serious money,
Speaker 1: and the sort of money that would pay their rent
Speaker 1: for two years, and you know, give him a deposit
Speaker 1: on a house, whatever it might be. And so they
Speaker 1: put the envelope in the glove box and they drifted Bendigo,
Speaker 1: and this is how it started for Stevie Wood. He
Speaker 1: becomes Frinzella's race stage jockey in the Ringings. Looking back
Speaker 1: on it, the choice to take the fat envelope not
Speaker 1: the skinny envelope was the one that derailed his life
Speaker 1: because by making that choice, he actually handcuffed himself to
Speaker 1: a very bad and violent man, Rickrenzla, Because later on,
Speaker 1: when he did want to pull out, did say to Lorenzla,
Speaker 1: I don't think you can get away with doing this
Speaker 1: for this reason, it's too risky. For that reason, Renzilla
Speaker 1: turned nasty snarled at him and said, listen, I can't
Speaker 1: guarantee that you won't end up dead up an alley
Speaker 1: or floating in the era. And that is when Steve
Speaker 1: would realize that he was in too deep and it
Speaker 1: was safer to go along with somebody like Wensella then
Speaker 1: to go against him. Next episode, we're going to look
Speaker 1: at how Stevie would got more deeply involved in dishonesty
Speaker 1: and race rigging until eventually he was in so deep
Speaker 1: he couldn't get out without going to jail. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for
Speaker 1: true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns,
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