Men In Hats Syndicate member Mike Botting was grabbed to do an interview, journalist Bruce Clark having a laugh with him about the owners being dressed up in the purple, white and green of Prince Of Penzance’s silks.
‘That’s what we’ve invested our winnings on,’ Mike joked. ‘We’ve got ties, cufflinks, scarves … we might have suits by next time!’
‘His best win so far,’ said another delighted owner, Bruce Dalton. ‘A lot of blokes go through their whole life without getting a horse like this. He hasn’t won a Group One, but he still has a couple of years left.’
Sam Brown ‘couldn’t believe’ they’d won, that Prince Of Penzance’s name was on an honour roll along with the likes of Melbourne Cup winners Americain and Kingston Rule: ‘Fancy that, his name was now etched in history.’
A two-kilogram penalty for the win saw Prince Of Penzance make his way up in the order of entry for the Melbourne Cup, and it was still a possibility. But he had pulled a couple of shoes off during the Moonee Valley Cup, and his feet were a little sore. He would not be 100 percent for the Tuesday.
Two weeks later Prince Of Penzance returned to Flemington, the Group Two Queen Elizabeth Stakes his next assignment. For the first time Michelle Payne was not aboard, unable to take the ride due to suspension. Sydney jockey Hugh Bowman took her place. He had the horse nicely placed, but the combination of top weight of 58 kilograms and too firm a track proved a stumbling block — though he was still a courageous second.
The day was a special one for the Men In Hats crew who had long been fans of Hugh Bowman. In March 2010, syndicate member Scott Jenke had celebrated his buck’s party at a Warwick Farm race meeting, and while many of the revellers were not in a fit state to notice the last race, Scott’s brother Paul and Sam Brown had done the form and put a quadrella on.
Alive in the last of the four legs it was a Hugh Bowman mount who won them a nice dividend. Sam remembers he and Paul jumping up and down on the fence, yelling to the jockey, ‘Give us your goggles!’
‘Hugh magnificently obliged and instantly elevated himself to legend status in our eyes. He has always been and will always be one of my favourite jockeys, and he was riding our horse!’
Of course, Michelle is also a great favourite, and it was unusual for Prince Of Penzance’s owners not to be talking to her before a race.
‘I couldn’t resist having a cheeky dig,’ Sam recalled, saying, ‘Hey Hugh, where are your pearl earrings?’
Prince Of Penzance was again in the placings in the Group Two Sandown Classic, with Michelle back in the saddle at his next outing. Racing a touch keenly early, he was badly held up for runs at the turn, getting into the clear and boxing on well to the line to finish a close-up third.
That effort was all the more meritorious when he was later found to be sore. Another bone chip, again on that troublesome off fore, was located and removed.
A well-earned break was to be enjoyed, Prince Of Penzance settling in nicely at Laura Dixon’s Dowling View Equine Centre.
Already at this time betting was open for the following year’s Melbourne Cup. Generous odds were on offer and Andrew Broadfoot was one to have a dabble. The day after he had a bet his phone rang.
Prince Of Penzance was ill, dangerously ill.
Chapter Five
Life or Death
It was fortunate on that otherwise normal afternoon in late January, eight weeks or so after Prince Of Penzance’s operation, that Laura Dixon was at home. The owner and manager of Dowling View Equine Centre was preparing to move a delivery of sand when she noticed that the bay looked a bit agitated.
But just a little, as though a fly or something minor was annoying him. Then he got down and rolled, kicking out a bit. Laura thought it might be his rug that was proving an irritation, so she removed it.
Some would’ve left it at that. Fortunately, Laura was both diligent and caring.
And so she kept watch and when Prince Of Penzance continued to roll, Laura called Darren Weir. Already she had erred on the side of caution by ringing the stable vet, but he was on the other side of Ballarat at the time.
During the next five minutes Laura witnessed what all lovers of horses dread. Prince Of Penzance was no longer just rolling, he was throwing himself on the ground. He was in pain.
Within ten minutes Dr Nicola Lynch was on the scene, but it proved difficult for her to inspect her patient — he was under too much stress to stand still. It took three lots of drugs before she could even get near him.
Getting him onto the float proved difficult, taking all of Laura’s and Dr Lynch’s patience and equine expertise. And once in he again wanted to go down.
Fortunately the equine clinic was close by, just a quick trip around the corner, at the back of Ballarat race course. Specialist surgeon Dr Brian Anderson and his team — a nurse, an anaesthetist and an assistant — had everything set up and ready to go.
All up it was just an hour from Prince Of Penzance’s first symptoms of colic to him being under the knife.
Dr Anderson well remembers Prince Of Penzance’s arrival at the clinic, and things looked bleak. ‘He was not in good shape,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He was in a lot of pain and had not responded to several pain-killing injections.’
The normal heart rate of the thoroughbred at rest sits at around 36–42 beats per minute. At this stage, Prince Of Penzance’s was soaring into the eighties and nineties.
The lack of response to pain relief, Dr Anderson says, is the first sign of danger, with ninety percent of colic (a generic term for a stomach upset) cases rectified by a single dose.
‘It is a bit like a person having an upset stomach after a curry — you take a panadol and lie down and usually you are fine within the hour.’
But in the other ten percent of cases, something more serious occurs. The digestive gases build up and the abdomen begins to distend. And this is what was happening to the now very uncomfortable and distressed Prince Of Penzance.
It was, said Dr Anderson ‘a life or death situation’.
After a couple of diagnostic tests, an ultrasound and a rectal exam to see what was going on, Prince Of Penzance was prepared for surgery. He was placed in a confined area next to a shifting partition.
Within five minutes, once the initial dose of anaesthetic had kicked in, he went down. The moving wall was gently lowered, the horse slid across to an awaiting water bed warmed to a comfortable thirty-seven degrees.
From there he was hooked up to a ventilator and an anaesthetic machine, turned upside down and transported to the adjoining surgery by a pulley system. And then Dr Anderson went to work, beginning with a forty-centimetre incision through the horse’s stomach. ‘A bit like opening your jacket,’ he said as he deftly unzipped his coat.
Sometimes what confronts the equine surgeon at this stage is distressing. The ‘large and long’ intestines (in the horse the small intestines measure at around eighteen metres in length, the large intestines about six) in reaction to the build up of gases start to twist, cutting off blood supply. It can take only a couple of hours for irreversible damage to occur. Tissues starved of oxygen begin to die.
Parts of the intestine can be removed, the remaining parts joined, as Dr Anderson put it, ‘a bit of plumbing’.
When this occurs the likelihood of complete recovery plummets, from a seventy to eighty percent chance, to fifty percent or less.
Fortunately, thanks to the speed in which Prince Of Penzance made it to the clinic, in this case there was not yet any major damage.
And so, over the course of a couple of hours, a twist of the large intestine was fixed. It is work of high concentration, with little margin for error. The skill and experience