The Marist Brothers at Assumption College Kilmore may have got it pretty right at the time when they suggested to a young Tony Ottobre that he wasn’t going to be an all-star and should be looking elsewhere for a future.
Sure, the sporting likes of Neil Danaher, Francis Bourke, Shane Crawford, Billy Brownless, Simon O’Donnell, even filmmaker Fred Schepisi are part of a rich Assumption Alumni, Group I winning trainer Tony Noonan was once a teacher there and supposedly sex education came under his watch.
And Tony Ottobre? “Those were the days of the cane if you were a naughty boy, I reckon I held the record for a couple of years.”
But yesterday he was only kid from Assumption holding (he started off at Reservoir primary), or trying to, an All-Star Mile Trophy. (And a cheque of $2m).
“I’m trying to get it into the car, it’s in a case, it’s that big and it’s on wheels its that heavy,” he said.
Outside of the punt, not many cares too much for owners. Good luck to them, but it's not our horse!
We eventually get to know those of the good horses, Might And Power and Nick Moraitis for example and his fruit and vegies, Makybe Diva (and Tony Santic and his tuna and those masks), Black Caviar (Neil Werrett and those Echuca annual boat loaders), Winx (Debbie Kepitis and the purple and the chickens, Peter Tighe, the market man from Brisbane and the seldom seen Richard Treweek), but we felt with and riding alongside them.
Because they let us.
Not many horses take us that far. So why Ottobre? Because he does. And it's much more than just a race. It's life and a journey and a much bigger story well worth telling.
Obviously, that’s a long journey from there to here, the there, well that young Ottobre learning to ride horses at a nearby Kilmore horse school and thus becoming an apprentice (Bob Winks and then Pat Burke at Flemington) - “I loved the outdoors at school, we’d be out cutting firewood for the dormitories, it was tough, but I loved it, and it led me to the horses.”
“I was always a thrill-seeker, you have to be.”
The here is that former jockey, he never rode a winner, turned strapper and breaker (with Colin Hayes at Lindsay Park – any need for an irony alert?), who became a self-made man who returned to his passion and now lives every day of it with close family, friends and allies and forever burnishing the beloved memory of daughter Jennifer, who succumbed to brain cancer in 2015.
Most will know why every horse is now a Jenni something, and why Ottobre, wife Lyn and son Michael, now race in her favorite sky blue and purple colours, that replaced his original Richmond inspired yellow and black diamonds, but Tony more worried he was holding back Richmond’s premiership treble because when he changed them to the Jenni’s the Tigers won three of the next four (20017, 2019, 2020).
Ottobre has had his own fights, in business and on and off the track, some media remain on the “maybe tomorrow” list, but don’t take this as anything against a man who embraces all in his team on the team game.
Which is why everyone who played a role in Pride of Jenni, Vo Rogueing the All-Star Mile just when Racing Victoria needed some fun and credibility out of its rich but embattled showcase, got a sincere mention.
For sure there was the Ciaron Maher juggernaut, but Samantha Waters, the girl who has remodelled the one-time headcase with care and endless devotion. Brendan McCarthy, a trainer yes, but go-too chiropractor to tick a little box.
And Peter Ellis, The Colonel, a hint to the Kentucky Fried Chicken man looks, who walks tracks and finds more than eleven different herb and spices in them and gave Declan Bates the key ingredient fast lane to victory.
“When I started my own car parts company (LED Technologies in 1989, I wanted to make it a happy place to come to work, we ended up without about 30 staff and had business in America and Birmingham in England as well, but it was always about our people.
“We’d take staff out for dinners, bowls, movies but every year we had overseas holidays, Thailand, Fiji, Vanuatu, some never had a passport, the last year I had the business it was Hawaii,” he said
.
“I’d never wanted to work for anyone else, when I got out of racing, I worked in retail (discount stores), but I wanted to stick my neck out and have a go. I’d worked in the railways as a station master but left that to live the dream and worked hard make it come true.”
Horses were let’s say spare parts back then as Tony was more focussed on getting his Taiwanese manufacturers to build products to pester the establishment and make sure you stopped before running into the car in front.
Dantone’s Princess, with his mate Daniel Groves, was his first venture back. It’s 2011, Jim Mason won a race at Moe with it. Black Bart came next (“I wish it was Black Heart Bart”), but he won four and was when Ottobre found Darren Weir.
And then came Where’s The Bar and the punt. There is some suggestion that Tony, who did, does and still likes a wager, might have landed a little coup when Where’s The Bar won a race at juicy odds.
Which meant go to New Zealand, buy a “decent” horse for decent money ($170,000 at a New Zealand Bloodstock Ready To Run), it was Jennio, race in the old colors, was more than useful and is now the dam of Mickio (named after son Michael) and harbouring Rosehill Guineas ambition next week.
Now the horses are as much a business as a passion - sell the males, keep the female - race and enjoy the rest - 70 odd horses under the Cape Schanck banner on the beautiful peninsula property alongside The National Golf Course.
The goal left – to breed and race a Melbourne Cup winner before he’s 75, so in the next decade.
And of course it will be a Jenni.
“Of course, we think about her every day, it’s been eight years now but as soon as I see something beautiful I see Jenni.
Jennifer carried the Italian Ottobre fighting spirit. To the end. Given perhaps nine to 12 months to endure her terminal cancer, she got married to her husband Luke before passing away some four years later.
As always contemplations and reflections in a blur on Saturday always drifted back to his real pride of Jenni, as much as one very special horse.
“If I see someone in a wheelchair I see her, she was in a chair that last six months of her life, things just remind you of her and if you haven’t experienced it, I can never expect anyone to understand it.
“But we are ok, the horses make it so much easier to get us through and we always think of the best they have to offer us as she did.”
Especially when its Pride Of Jenni. And you live and breathe it on your own terms. Without any babble.
He's an all-star fella that Tony.
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