Regal Vista shared a striking resemblance to Royal School and Tricky Ricky had a plan to prosper big time

In comparison to the Fine Cotton incident, the Royal School ring-in at Casterton in 1972 was significantly more complex and sophisticated. While the Fine Cotton con may resemble a plot from a slap stick comedy film, the Regal Vista/Royal School job can be likened to a classic whodunit movie.

Regal Vista and Royal School were two look-alikes. Both were dark brown entires, with a small white snippet on the forehead. Regal Vista, by Port Vista from Bold Guise, was a six-year-old while Royal School, by King Tudor from School Fold, was seven. Royal School was a poor-performing galloper that had failed to escape the bottom three placings in its last four runs. So when the horse romped home in the Muntham Handicap at Casterton on May 12, 1972 at the early odds of $50, many punters were left scratching there heads as to if this was the same horse. To the eye, they were difficult to distinguish, except by someone who knew both horses well.

The big difference however, was the ability of the two horses. Royal School’s previous win, in October 1970, was at the NSW country track of Wellington. Regal Vista, on the other hand, had won during the season at Caulfield in the Rosstown Plate. Previously, Regal Vista had won the weight-for-age Chirnside Stakes and J.J. Liston Stakes. Renzella is aware that jockey Stephen Wood knows Regal Vista because every jockey in the eastern seaboard does, at least by reputation. He's been one of the best sprinters in the land. A Liston Stakes, a third behind the champ Dual Choice in an Oakleigh Plate, a Moonee Valley five-furlong record and a red-hot go at pinching the Stradbroke in Brisbane - trained in recent times by Brian Courtney in Melbourne. He was a pretty smart galloper to be racing at the Casterton Cup meeting on May 12, 1972, in the 6-furlongs (1200m) Muntham Handicap with only 8st 1lb (51.5 kgs) on his back.

The mastermind behind the coup was Rick Renzella who purchased Royal School for $350 in 1971 and then bought Regal Vista. Royal School was raced four times in eastern Victoria. Unfit, the horse had run last twice and second last twice. Then, at Casterton, the super-fit Regal Vista was substituted. There was a good thing in the race, a chestnut gelding named Apex Star, who had won at his two previous starts at Warrnambool and Hamilton. Apex Star was posted a hot favourite while substitute Royal School opened at 50-1. When the money came, it came with a rush. The crowd was buzzing when Royal School was backed into 7-4. Apex Star was a smart galloper and would have beaten the real Royal School easily. Regal Vista, however, was simply too good and cantered in. Wood parks behind the field until the turn, something no jockey would do on the real Royal School, a free-running sprinter. Then he goes extravagantly wide around the turn and beats Apex Star by three lengths, with another five lengths between second and third. Royal School pays only $3.80 the win, but the off-course double is $111.90 for fifty cents, around 224/1.

Next day, Renzella gets his doubles tickets cashed in. The 300 tickets represent $33,570. He goes straight to Balaklava TAB agency and gets a cheque made out in his name for $33,000 and $570 cash. It's a lot of money but only a quarter of the doubles pool, which is curious. There are 1078 winning tickets to share $120,000. When the horse’s owner, car salesman Rick Renzella lined his pockets with $33,000 in winnings, many smelt a rat, including trainer Jim Cerchi who declared the horse “a ring-in”, but well after the event. Veteran trainer Cerchi claimed after the race that he’d seen the real Royal School run before, and that the Royal School he was looking at that afternoon in Casterton, wasn’t him. The stewards ask trainer Afflick for the horse's papers. Being a seasoned jumps jockey, he lies heroically, insisting that the steward Beattie never returned them. The forged papers have vanished forever but that's not going to save anyone. Regal Vista also disappears, and the talk is he won't be seen again either. After checking the documents later, authorities determined that Royal School’s brand as stated on the Casterton papers were revealed as a fake.

There are two big winners on the Royal School double apart from Renzella, easily traced because they have TAB telephone accounts. One is a punter named Gardiner, who wins $9,175. The other is a Mr Fox, who wins more than $16,000. It is never publicly established whether this is the professional punter Donnie Fox. The mystery is who financed $61,000 worth of winning doubles tickets not accounted for by Renzella, Fox and Gardiner. Anyone who doesn't collect as swiftly as Renzella might reckon it is too 'hot' to collect at all, especially once the alarm is raised about a big criminal fraud. Simple arithmetic shows that whoever stands to win $61,000 must have put up several thousand dollars, something only big punters could do. Royal School is returned to Afflick's stables on 18 May, where an ABC crew films him racing around a paddock kicking up his heels, apparently in prime condition. The clip is useful in court later, when Renzella's barrister Phil Opas points out that this magnificent beast holds the mile record at Parkes and could well have won the Muntham Handicap on its merits.

A careless remark by jockey Stephen Wood is said to have sparked the sensational enquiry which followed. Wood, who rode Regal Vista, is alleged to have said to Louis Toth, who rode Apex Star, that he was glad the race was over because he had been promised a gift of $4000. Four grand after winning a $500 race at Casterton is a little out of the ordinary and the hounds were quickly in pursuit of the fox. Racing authorities banned everyone involved, and Renzella, trainer Ross William Afflick, jockey Stephen Wood and two others were prosecuted for fraud. They warn off Renzella and Afflick from racing for life, a sentence that is catastrophic for Afflick, who has no other trade. Canavan is outed a total of twelve years for conspiracy, malpractice and misleading evidence. Wood gets twenty-two years for the same offences. Oddly, the stewards disqualified the plodder Royal School for life too, as if the horse had been in on the scam all along. The mastermind, used-car dealer Rick Renzella, got a financial result as well as two years in jail. Despite his solitary confinement in a chook pen, Regal Vista still has value and is sold to offset Renzella's legal fees. He races on, defying the experts who predicted he would break down, and ends up still going around as a ten-year-old. He's a long way past his best as a galloper but, in the end, he is a horse. And all a horse cares about is being fed and watered and being around other horses.