Punting Profiles: John Wren
There are few more important men in the history of Australian racing and gambling than John Wren. Not that those running the game wanted any part of him. Wren took racing and gambling to the masses. He was a working class hero who wrenched racing from the aristocracy and placed it at the feet of the working and the poor. At a time when involvement in racing and gambling was determined by money and title and class, Wren took the grandeur of thoroughbred racing and the hope of gambling to the inhabitants of the pubs and the streets and the factories. And he was adored and hated for it and to this day, half a century since he met his maker, he still elicits the most extreme of emotions.
Born poor into a Catholic working class immigrant family, he soon realised the only way out of the slums was money. So he got it. Growing up in the dank of 19th century Collingwood Melbourne, Wren would never forget his streets of youth and would forever be associated with the inner city suburb. He is one of the few gamblers to be born dirt poor and die extremely rich. He gambled to the last and came up trumps more often than not.
In 1890, as a young man trying to climb the ladder of opportunity, a century before the phrase was even coined, a nineteen year-old Wren had every last penny he had earned and scrounged on a horse destined to be one of the all-time stars of the Australian turf, to win the Melbourne Cup. The horse was Carbine, and he, of course, saluted. Had Wren lost, he was ruined. But he won. And he used the winnings from Carbine to create an empire, never forgetting the fact that it was horse racing and gambling that had been the foundation of his upward spiral.
Wren, ever the gambler, did not let his winnings sit quietly. He used his sizable collect to establish the Collingwood Tote, a profitable venture that would bring the name Wren to prominence and lead to the man becoming a hero of the working class and an enemy of The Establishment. The Collingwood Tote, while highly illegal, was not the first illegal gambling house in Melbourne. But it was the most successful because it was the first to actively court the masses. The venue took extremely low staked bets and was so well designed that punters rarely got nabbed. Tellers wore hoods and there were escape hatches everywhere in the well protected joint that sat behind a tobacconist on Johnson Street. Wren made over ₤20,000 a year, a fortune for a Collingwood boy.
The Collingwood Tote was the first time in Australia gambling had been taken away from the rich inner city clubs and the Members stands and bought it to the general public. As the wowsers howled, Wren grew stronger and more indignant of the establishment, offering the line that gambling bought hope to the working and the not so well off. He fought the Protestant wowsers by involving himself with the Catholic faction of the Labor Party. By the early 1900’s, Collingwood was run by Wren in the fashion of Tammany Hall, using his influence to hold off the narks. And he did for a while but by 1904, the high grounded moralists had started to win out. The clamp down was on, from the streets through to the Parliament, and while Wren fought the fight for a period, he was smart enough to get out of the tote game.
His most fabled bet occurred at the height of his wars with the Melbourne aristocracy, in the 1904 Caulfield Cup. Wren had gone into horse ownership and owned a quality middle distance type named Murmur. It was entered into the Caulfield Cup and Wren wished to back it for plenty. When Murmur strode down the outside for a three length victory, Wren won over ₤50,000. He first gathered the Cup in front of a horrified Establishment crowd before smugly collecting from the Melbourne bookmaking fraternity that despised him.
Soon after, those with the pull in the Melbourne racing game conspired to see him kept away from racing and the track. His horses were refused entry to races staged by the VRC and the VATC without any explanation. It was a stitch-up and everybody was aware, a bitter retaliation by those clinging to their class beliefs. The ban was soon lifted but not before Wren went about purchasing land and establishing racetracks in Richmond, Kensington and Fitzroy. Races were staged but the horses were not thoroughbreds. They were ponies. This was an embarrassment and a threat to the established Victorian racing industry with the races being rough and the courses coarse and the popularity luring plenty away from the thoroughbreds. It was another punch for the working class.
Wren continued to own horses throughout his life and won plenty of prizemoney and much more backing them. Horses such as Garlin, Pandect, Pure Fire and The Rover, all in the black and white colours of his beloved Collingwood Magpies, won Wren plenty but the last of that quartet, The Rover, was the horse involved in his largest lost. It was the 1921 Melbourne Cup and Wren had backed The Rover to win over ₤300,000. He failed by less than a length.
It was not only racing and politics that held Wren’s attention. He gambled plenty on gold mines and was an integral part in the running of the Collingwood Football Club. He also owned stadiums and racetracks across Australia, promoting cycling, boxing and wrestling as well as horse racing. He also encouraged plenty of punting on his said promotions, making sure anyone could get set.
Wren, by the twenties, ran most of his business empire above board. He was a generous philanthropist, particularly to the Catholic Church and he continued to be a working class hero. He was still involved in politics, protecting his interests from his power base of Collingwood, trade unions and the Catholic Church. He still gambled but by then, The Game had finished off the wowsers and punting had become not only legitimate but a part of the Australian way. And that transition for the punt was in no small part a result of John Wren.
Wren spent most of his final years fighting against Frank Hardy and the fictionalized account of Wren entitled Power Without Glory. Wren sued for libel and was amazed when he lost. Hardy was a member of the Communist Party of Australia and many, including Wren, believed the book was retribution for Wren’s active role against communism and the left of the ALP.
John Wren died of a heart attack shortly after the Magpies won the 1953 flag. As in life, Wren was not forgotten quickly in death. His funeral was performed by the Arch-Bishop of Melbourne and thirty priests. A guard of honour paved the way from church to cemetery. And his legacy can still be seen today throughout all of racing and sports. One look at the masses and you see Wren’s contribution.
This article first appeared on Punting Ace in 2008
