Just as I start to work out this next step, just before I ring Bart Cummings’ farm manager to talk over that special yearling mix he has offered, at least to have a look at it, real life intrudes on the equine fantasy.
My father becomes very ill when the prostate cancer he believed he had beaten returns in virulent form. Even worse is that the initial course of chemotherapy affects him so badly he has been hospitalised, just four days after it was administered.
I fly down to Melbourne to help in whatever way I can, making sure I am there for the doctor’s early morning rounds, to ensure the family knows exactly what the latest prognosis and plans are. I spend hours just sitting with Dad in his hospital room, filling him in on the latest news from home, sharing the daily word puzzle in the morning paper, and ducking out every now and then to get him a fruit smoothie from the local juice bar.
I also tell him endless horse stories from the farm and the track, more to distract him from his immediate ordeal than anything, as he has no real interest in racing beyond an annual punt in the Melbourne Cup. A Newcastle boy, born and bred, a man of active faith and grace, he has always been a rock of support for my two brothers and me. Though my parents live in Mount Martha on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, he and Mum have visited the farm a couple of times and he remembers it well … although he often wonders if I will ever be able to afford to build a house there that they can stay in next time. He also knows my foundation mares—Poetic Waters and Express—and is happy to hear how Rosie’s going, my tales of equine escapades helping him smile.
But hard as he tries to rally, Dad can’t overcome the impact on his system of the treatment he has been given. He dies three weeks later, early on the morning of 8 October 2008. Somehow, despite the severity of his illness, despite the fact that I have watched him suffer for three long weeks, his passing is inconceivable. Even though he was 82, it is unfathomable to us that Dad should be sick at all, let alone struck down so quickly by cancer and two debilitating strokes. For my mother, after a 66-year partnership, it is unimaginable.
My focus on Rosie, my headstrong young filly, is lost for the moment. The world is suddenly adrift in that strange state of grief when life goes on as usual, yet somehow doesn’t seem real to those touched by the tragedy. Such sadness seems to create its own separate reality. I go through the motions, checking on Rosie each week after I return home from the funeral. And the world of racing rolls on reassuringly, with Bart Cummings winning an amazing twelfth Melbourne Cup with his brave young stallion Viewed. The master is now focused on scoring number 13. Still it takes me a good couple of months before I am able to concentrate properly on the youngster who is now 18 months old. Vital months have been lost; time when she should have been moving to the next phase of her development as a racehorse.
But it’s Rosie who gets me going again. Each time I visit her, she is just a little bit bigger, with that extra flash of mischief in her eyes. ‘Something has to be done with me,’ she seems to be saying, and soon. And as the new catalogues for the New Year’s yearling sales start arriving by mail at the end of the year, the sense of responsibility in owning a filly bred to be a racehorse returns. Now it is something I can no longer ignore or continue to avoid.
The postie props the Magic Millions tome at the front door first, a list of 1800 thoroughbreds looking for new homes in a sale that runs over seven days, closely followed by the less dense Inglis Classic Sale inventory and then the truly awesome register for that company’s renowned Easter Sale, where youngsters from Australasia’s very best families are on display, where Maykbe Diva’s first foal is listed for sale. Literally thousands of yearlings are not only heading to sales around the country in the next few months; all things being equal, they will also be heading to the races at the same time as Rosie. Like it or not, they are her contemporaries and they are way ahead of her on their way to the track.
I need help in the form of firm and sound advice not laced with kindness or sentimentality so I can devise a plan of action. I need to talk with an expert horseman who can provide a broad view. I don’t feel that I can go back on the Bart track as too much time has flown past to follow up on the feed mix; instead, I decide to ring my colleague and friend Deane Lester, a professional racing form analyst and radio commentator who also has shares in several racehorses, as well as a yearling he has bred and will race himself. He will have a very definite view about what should be happening with Rosie.
‘Get her going in the new year,’ he tells me, quickly taking on the mantle of a wise godfather. ‘Don’t just leave her in the paddock. She’ll be too far behind the other yearlings when you do decide to bring her into work. And thanks for reminding me; I’m going to make sure the yearling I bred is coming into work right now, because I want him prepped up as if he was going to the sales. That’s always been the plan.’
This settles it. If a judge as good as Deane, born and bred at Cranbourne, now one of Victoria’s racing epicentres—and steeped in all things thoroughbred—is this adamant, it must be the way to go. No more mucking around. Rosie has to go to school. A proper school, far from the safe confines of home and the daily lessons she and her best friend Roxie have undergone courtesy of Diane.
Diane has taught them to accept the halters going on and off their heads, not to mention the bothersome lead ropes. These small accessories annoyed them at first, Rosie especially, but these are critical tools as far as their daily interactions with humans go. Diane persisted with them, day in, day out—equine tuition structured by a woman who has been working with horses all her life.
For my filly, particularly, this has been significant. Such basic schooling means she has become much more polite and attentive with everyone and everything around her on Diane’s farm, and she is actually keen to take part in these daily sessions. For Roxie too, the lessons have worked wonders. So they have been perfectly matched as paddock companions, and were now spending most of their time sharing feed bins, stepping over old tyres together, often with the (no longer scary) lead ropes dangling from their halters, knocking over water buckets, bumping into the back wall of their stall, brushing fences. It is all part of stable life that city slickers like me never give any thought to. Yet these things are the all-important mundane aspects of a normal work routine for a horse of any age.
From the moment they were born, they have watched Diane’s teenage sons and their friends fly round the property on dirt bikes and were entranced by the chooks and ducks and turkeys that roamed the house paddock. Nothing fazed them. It certainly wasn’t the picture-perfect existence the flash brochures selling yearlings with even flashier pedigrees painted. Life in Braidwood was a bit more boisterous. And hopefully a great start along the road to the racetrack by providing a solid, unpretentious grounding.
By the start of 2009, Rosie and Roxie are more than ready to tackle much bigger things—like the rubber-sided round yard, a dirt-based, round enclosure designed to work a horse in safety in a confined space. Even more challenging, they learn to walk in and out of Diane’s three-horse float. This particular lesson involves several good, slow circles around the contraption with Diane first, to get to know it, followed by a couple of long looks inside and watching their friend and handler walk in and out of the vehicle before any attempt is made for the two fillies to do the same.
Diane and I shouldn’t have worried about the two girls. Like every other task they attempted together, this one is done without any fuss at all. This means the next giant step is taken: standing in the float together. Initially, this involves the float being stationary. Once that is done, they then get used to its sway and hum as it moves around Diane’s property ever so slowly. Then it is out onto the road for a short trip before turning back home.
By the time high summer arrives, the 10-minute drive to Pic-ayune is next on the agenda, where they can run together in a paddock for a couple of months, to relax from all this learning. And by now, after so much deliberation, I’ve finally come up with ‘A Grand Plan’.
This involves Rosie being broken in down in Victoria, under the watchful eye of Robbie Griffiths, one of Australia’s top horsemen and a trainer I have always admired, who has agreed to take her into his stables. Even though she’s not a yearling he knows anything about, our mutual friend Deane Lester has helped talk him into it. Diane, on the other hand, is a big believer in bringing young horses along slowly and would much prefer I allow Rosie to stay on my farm for at least another six months with her filly Roxie. To her experienced eye, Rosie is not going to perform as a two year old, so bustling her along like this seems a pointless and unnecessarily expensive exercise. But I am convinced it is the best way to lay the groundwork for what will hopefully be a solid, successful racing career. So Diane accepts the plan and allows her own filly to go along for the first part of the ride that will take them to Picayune Farm.
As I help her load both youngsters into the float, walking a calm Rosie in after her friend, the old white Shetland pony going along for the ride to bolster their confidence, I wonder how they will react to leaving home for the first time and arriving somewhere new, not to mention how they will handle the trip itself. Again, like two seasoned troupers, they stand happily side-by-side as we drive out and away from the only home they have ever known.
Half an hour later, when they alight at Picayune, the only thing they are really interested in is tucking into the breakfast we have placed in their own feed bins that have been brought from home, to help them settle in. When they finally do raise their heads, seven other long noses stare at them over the adjoining fence, the older mares extremely keen to inspect the latest arrivals.
Poetic Waters, especially, is delighted to see her youngest daughter again. While some who work with horses insist mares don’t recognise their offspring once they are separated, I can only assume they haven’t had a chance to see it happen all that often—because from what I have seen in my short life with horses, they do. Certainly the two broodmares I have reunited with their son and daughter respectively have known them instantly, treating them in an entirely different way than the other horses they are living with, or are introduced to. And the youngsters always make a beeline for their mothers, simple as that. Maybe the big farms and studs don’t witness many family reunions.
The bond between Po and Rosie is unmistakable and, a couple of days later, I move the mare in with the two yearlings to help them move around the big paddock with more confidence. I also roam the other mares a paddock away, at the front of the farm with the donkeys, to give the trio more space. They can still see each other from a distance, but this should give everyone a chance to settle into a relaxed and easy routine.
The fillies certainly look more comfortable with Po. Without her, they did seem rather lost against the big sky and still-green summer grass, and rarely strayed far from the fence that separated them from the oldies. They begin to settle in quite quickly. The move has gone better than we could have anticipated, a credit to Diane’s professional care of the fillies.
Little do we know what is about to unfold, courtesy of one very clever donkey called Dusty.