Life with Rosie

by Helen Thomas

  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.

  Chapter 6

  Drama on the farm

  A handsome grey donkey with markings of black around his eyes and down his neck, Dusty arrived at the farm several months earlier, a surprise gift from the outgoing manager of the large farm next door that had just been sold. Worried about where he would end up, the young cattleman had simply moved him into one of my adjoining paddocks, knowing I wouldn’t have the heart to do anything other than let him join the herd. What no one knew, but we were about to learn, was that Dusty was a self-taught Houdini, a donkey more than capable of opening gates even humans had trouble with. The only way to keep him secure was to tie a rope around the closed gate and adjoining fence post, to make sure he couldn’t get through, even if he picked the latch.

  All went well for the next few days, with Diane driving out to check on the two yearlings early each morning. Then came the call every horse owner dreads, the one from a neighbour that goes something along the lines of: ‘That chestnut filly of yours has jumped the fence and is in my paddock.’ Roxie was on the tear.

  Teenage son in tow, Diane flew through town and over the river to catch Roxie, who had, it turned out, not really jumped as much as clambered over the farm’s oldest border fence, the last remaining strand of barbed wire anywhere on the property, incurring superficial cuts to her chest and front legs in the process.

  After cleaning her up, Diane decided the safest course of action was to move the two fillies and their chaperone away from the scene of this excitement and into the middle paddock that runs around the base of the hill, providing them all with a more lush and shaded environment. This would mean her yearling couldn’t try the same silly stunt again. They were closer to the older mares and donkeys too, and could get to know each other over a different, kinder fence. Hours later, when all was quiet and they were settled in, Diane drove home. All was right again with the world, at least at Picayune.

  She returned the next morning to feed them, only to find everyone in the one paddock. What I should have foreseen and warned Diane about was that, for Dusty, having the mare and two fillies move closer to his gang in the front paddock, without him being able to reach them, would be too much to bear. What this donkey hated more than anything was being kept away from the heart of the action, especially if it meant being separated from any of the mares he had adopted as his own, let alone any new arrivals. In his mind, he was the man of the land. A working donkey used to spending much of his springs and early summers teaching the bull calves to walk on lead ropes and accept human handling, he often found his newfound retirement at Picayune boring. But no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t find another farm that needed a donkey to work at such a traditional, old-fashioned task.

  So here was Dusty, with time on his hands and nothing else to do but focus on the thrilling arrival of the two yearlings, no doubt frustrated that he couldn’t be with them as soon as they moved into the next paddock.

  It is safe to assume that—as the smart grey donkey watched the trio move about that paddock with the gum trees on the side of the hill—he became determined to bring the two herds together, no doubt spending hours working on the wire tie that held the gate chain in place, untwisting the loop I had (wrongly) assumed was tamper-proof before pushing back the gate and … we will never really know what actually happened next. Or when, exactly.

  But Diane certainly sensed something wasn’t quite right when she looked into the paddock. It wasn’t just that the mares were mingling with the two yearlings. Rosie, always the first to whinny a greeting and start trotting towards any visitor, was immobile, not even looking her way. And as she drew closer, she saw why. A large chunk of flesh had been torn from the filly’s neck, a hole almost down to the bone and deep enough to fit a fist in. Blood was dripping from under her mane onto the yellowing grass. She was clearly going into shock. Gently, Diane put a halter on Rosie and led her slowly into the smaller front paddock. She then called the vet. And me.

  She trudged back to get her pick-up truck that was loaded with feed for the fillies and drove around to the front of the property, where they were now standing together under the shade of a row of old poplars.

  And then she waited, trying to get the little bay with the smudge of white on her forehead to eat at least some of the grain and molasses mix both fillies usually wolfed down.

  And waited, stroking Rosie’s head to keep her calm as the already warm summer morning grew hotter. And waited, eventually getting back in the truck, but talking to the filly resting her long nose on the car window all the while, her good friend Roxie never leaving her side. Eventually, as the hot day dragged on, the chestnut lay down in the sun for her morning nap.

  ‘It wasn’t good because I could see Rosie slipping further into shock,’ Diane told me later. ‘But I knew the vet would come as soon as he got out of surgery, so all I could do was hang on in there.’

  What had happened, I asked, aghast, too far away in my office in Sydney. Had she run into the branch of a tree?

  ‘It looks like a bite to me,’ Diane replied. ‘I reckon one of those mares has had a go at her, and she hasn’t got out of the way in time. There are teeth marks at the top of her mane, so she’s got a fair dinkum hiding. She’ll need a good few stitches.’

  This made some sense. Having led a happy, pain-free life to this point, it would not have occurred to Rosie that any one of the mares would actually seriously put her in her place, let alone that any harm could come to her. It was a foreign concept. And the mare who had taken the disciplinary action was probably just as surprised as she was when she actually made contact and got a grip, expecting the filly to slip away from her.

  Three-and-a-half hours later, two of the three vets from the local practice arrived, to make sure they could handle my filly with minimum trouble, under sedation if necessary. Initially, they weren’t convinced the wound was the result of a bite, and both felt it could be cleaned and stitched. But then they had a better look.

  Closer inspection revealed the wound was too deep and too wide to pull together, let alone stitch closed. All we could do, they advised, was keep it as clean as possible and give Rosie antibiotics to stave off infection. On the positive side, the vets assured Diane that the wound hadn’t torn the neck muscle, although it had gone pretty close.

  By the time I arrived later that afternoon it was an overcast, grey afternoon, with a light drizzle falling as I got out of the car. Rosie was standing at the top of the pa
ddock, head down and shaking. And nothing anyone had told me over the past few hours prepared me for what the wound looked like.

  It was an oozing, gaping hole, with a couple of teeth marks at the top of her mane framing the damage. At least she could still move her neck, lifting it slowly up and down from the ground. This was not part of the plan, I thought, as I stood in the rain with my injured filly, her trembling head resting on my shoulder. She did not deserve to be beaten up like this, nor did my dreams for her need this kind of pounding. I wondered how it would affect her, physically and emotionally. How far would it set her back on the road to the racetrack?

  As I comforted Rosie, I also wondered which of the mares had done this. Not her mother, or Express; bossy dowager she most certainly was, but she was also the kindest of souls to young ones, a nurturer. It could only have been one of the other four and the most likely candidate was Molly, a former resident of the stud next door who had never had a foal, or been around many yearlings in her adult life.

  She had probably tried to assert her paddock rights when Rosie got too close. All the possible culprits were gazing over at Rosie and me from the other side of the poplars, keen to be involved with whatever my sudden arrival heralded.

  The longer I stood there talking to Rosie, coaxing her to eat at least a little of the lucerne hay I had brought for her, the more convinced I became it had just been an awful accident. More significantly, Rosie’s wound needed constant attention, which meant I had to stay with her until she was out of the danger zone of infection. For the next couple of weeks I would have to juggle work and yearling nursing duties.