Wild ride in a deadly game

McGinty, pictured at Ellerslie, won in Sydney despite being a victim of obstructive riding.

You'll struggle to find it recorded anywhere officially, but Sydney racing operated under the dark shadow of the Mafia for quite a time.

Thankfully, today's racing is on the up and up, but you would have to have been blind to think every Sydney race was fair dinkum through a period of more than a decade and a half from the early 1970s.

Always lurking on the fringes of horse racing was one of Sydney's most notorious criminals, George Freeman. His tentacles, first in harness racing at Harold Park, spread through the galloping game and reached out to corrupt high-ranking politicians, the judiciary, police, racing officials, racing journalists, trainers and jockeys.

His involvement with the goings-on at the Harold Park trots were so nefarious it is difficult to believe today that it actually occurred. It was widely accepted at the time that at least two horses each night at Harold Park were the only ones going in their races, and in an attempt to disguise that, the baddies always picked out favourites to start with. A $20 shot shortening in to $1.50 was not a good look. A $3 pop punted in to $1.50 or less was deemed safer, but fooled no one. Bookies went broke because everyone in the know - and that included Harold Park officials, at least one handicapper and one steward - wanted to back only one horse. Eventually the public woke up to the fact they were being cheated and attendances dropped alarmingly.

Sydney journalist Kevin Perkins chronicled George Freeman magnificently in his book, The Gambling Man, first published in 1990 by Tongan Press. It may or may not be significant that this well-researched book, a favourable look at the Waterhouse bookmaking dynasty in Australia, was published on Freeman's death.

Perkins included in his book that bookmaker Bill Waterhouse on more than one occasion warned him not to include Freeman in the book for fear of Perkins' life. Waterhouse himself received so many threats - generally centring on a bomb being placed in the boot of his car - that he armed himself.

In a chapter on Freeman, Perkins wrote: "In this scandalous period [mid-1970s], when the inaction of trotting officials amounted to criminal negligence, horses were shot, racing people were beaten up and others bribed; one country driver, approached by a gang to stay out of the first three runners, revealed how he didn't take the threat seriously and tried all the same, but his horse could only manage fourth - and they gave him $5000! Throwing that kind of money around, imagine what the fixers stood to win on the trifecta.

"Finally, complaints were made to the Sydney CIB in December 1975, alleging that Freeman was fixing at the trots; police were told that Douglas Melvin Forbes was organising trotting drivers to cause particular race results, and that Freeman was associated with him in the enterprise. Information was given that Freeman had caused Forbes to join him by planting a bomb in the boot of his car and bringing it to his attention.

"An official report of the NSW Crime Intelligence Unit of March 1977 said detectives were unable to obtain concrete evidence that the conspiracy existed, but the investigation did reveal a number of disturbing aspects involving those persons who did not co-operate with police during the inquiries."

Yes, the baddies could get you in horse racing in Sydney if you let your guard down even for a moment. The late Merv Ritchie found that out when he took fine stayer Apollo Eleven to Australia for the Sydney Cup.

After winning the Chipping Norton Stakes, Apollo Eleven was joint favourite for the Sydney Cup, a race he'd previously won impressively. When Apollo Eleven won the Cup the first time, his rider Brian Andrews said on race morning that Apollo Eleven felt like a powder keg waiting to explode.

This time Andrews and Merv Ritchie were left scratching their heads as the handsome stayer finished down the track. It wasn't until a month later that Ritchie's suspicions were confirmed. Apollo Eleven's entire coat fell out, along with his mane and tail, and his feet disintegrated. It was a classic case of poisoning - he'd been "got at" before the Sydney Cup.

Where the baddies had an edge was in the float transporter on the way to the races. Horses were only allowed to be accompanied by registered stablehands, and Merv Ritchie was forced to sit by and watch his horse handled by complete strangers.

Merv Ritchie passed away in 2003. Before his death he said that he was certain Apollo Eleven had been doped for a go-slow performance, and that he was equally certain he knew who had done the job - someone who worked for a major Sydney stable.

I worked for a decade in the racing department of the Auckland Star with harness writer Ron Bisman. When harness racing began in Macau - the forerunner of today's thoroughbred racing - Ron Bisman landed the job as racing secretary. On one of his many trips back to New Zealand, Bisman told me he'd been shocked to receive a call from his good friend Kevin Newman, asking for help to land a position as a driver in Macau. For more than a decade, Newman had been Sydney's, if not Australia's, leading harness driver. The thought of downsizing - to the point of considering a Macau contract with paltry stakemoney - made no sense.

Newman didn't get his Macau contract, and two years later I was on holiday in Cairns. One night in the motel house bar, the proprietor told me he and his sons had owned restaurants in Sydney and been heavily into harness racing, with three horses trained by Kevin Newman.

One Sunday morning, he had arrived at Newman's training ground to find Kevin lying on the track with two broken legs. When asked what had happened, Newman replied that a horse had thrown him from the sulky. Trouble was, there were no tyre marks on the newly harrowed track.

Newman had links with George Freeman, and his attempt at a Macau contract had probably been an attempt to get out. The restaurateur knew immediately what a deadly game he was involved in. Within two weeks he had sold his horses and his restaurants, and bought the motel in Cairns.

IT was against this remarkable backdrop that the McGinty team arrived back in Sydney. George Freeman was dead, but his influence was not. It was no surprise, therefore, when chief stipendiary steward John Schreck gathered the McGinty team for a serious talk before the Canterbury Guineas. It was only a couple of days out from the race, and McGinty had already been posted a 10 to 9 on ($1.90) favourite.

"Do you know anyone back in New Zealand who's handy with a gun and would be prepared to use it if necessary?" Schreck asked the team. They didn't need to be asked twice. "Yes, as a matter of fact I've got the perfect person for the job," said Haubie.

Re-enter Billy Burke. He'd been having an afternoon drink at the Poroti pub when Haubie called. "Can you get over here tomorrow?" Haubie asked. "No problem mate," was the reply.

Armed with a shotgun that was to provide him with his lifelong nickname from that point, Billy "Shotgun" Burke held sway over the McGinty stable in Sydney. This was a deadly serious and expensive game.

On the morning of the Canterbury Guineas, Colin Jillings sat Bob Vance down and grilled him. "Under no circumstances are you to go inside another horse in the second half of this race. You've drawn inside, and when you go into that first bend out of the home straight you're to make sure there's good space between you and the running rail. Don't worry, there won't be a horse inside you because they're going to push you towards the running rail. If there's not space to take the buffer, you're going to cannon into the rail, which is what they want."

That was only the start. "Down the back straight I want you to move him off the rail and be somewhere behind the leaders. The most important part is do not go inside a horse in the home straight."

It was just as Jillings predicted. Several runners wider on the track came over to push McGinty towards the running rail on the first bend, but Vance was awake to the ploy. Down the back he moved the colt one width off the rail and was perfectly poised on the home bend to produce the dramatic sprinting finish that had propelled him ahead of the opposition in almost every start.

To this day Vance doesn't know why he did it, but he suddenly ignored instructions and went to drive McGinty between horses with 200m to run. On his inside he had his old Todman Slipper Trial adversary, Marscay, who had led, and on the outside of the gap was Chiamare. As Jillings had predicted, the split-second Bob Vance committed McGinty to the gap, it closed. McGinty clipped heels as he was spat out behind the pair and knuckled over. There was barely 180m to travel, and in a panic Vance swung McGinty violently to the left. Out wide was Baron Kane, a giant of a three-year-old, and McGinty cannoned into him. "If Baron Kane hadn't been there, I'd have ended up going all the way to the outside fence," says Vance.

Because of his size, Baron Kane didn't move off his line, but the Kiwi colt bounced off him and straightened. Only a horse of McGinty's remarkable nimbleness and acceleration could have reacted in time after so much drama. But sprint McGinty did, and in a flash he burst to the lead and had enough petrol in the tank and enough ticker to hold out a dashing finishing run from emerging Sydney star, Veloso, on whom there had been a fearsome punt close to start time.

On pulling up, Veloso's rider, Peter Cook, said, "Vance, that's the last race you'll win in Sydney."

As it transpired, Cook was right, but it wasn't he who stood in McGinty's way in the Rosehill Guineas and AJC Derby - it was the weather. John Schreck dragged all the Guineas jockeys into the judicial room and told them it was the worst case of obstructive riding he'd witnessed.

The McGinty team partied into the night. At 3am Sunday morning, Colin Jillings couldn't hold onto it any longer. "I told you not to go inside a horse," he told Bob Vance, and one of the greatest grillings of all time began. It was certainly the worst Vance experienced in his career. Haubie tried to intervene and was given the red card, and McGinty's jockey was reduced to tears. Jillings had learned to live with defeat - the thing he could not tolerate was a jockey not following instructions. And winning didn't change that one bit.

From the Horse's Mouth: The Keith Haub Story, written by Mike Dillon, published by HarperCollins NZ Ltd, April 2006.