Couple who have faced life-changing challenges cheer on horse Tai Ho
Emotions will run high if Southland horse Tai Ho wins the Grand National Steeplechase today.
Getting Tai Ho into the steeplechase this weekend has more meaning for a Knapdale couple who have faced life-changing challenges in the past two and a half years.
Trainer Ellis Winsloe will have an army of supporters cheering on Tai Ho in one of the country’s premier jumping races in Christchurch on today.
Ellis will have a lot of his family with him on course but wife Lynne has not made the trip.
She is staying home to watch television coverage with family and friends. Lynne is a tetraplegic following a fall from her horse in early 2016.
The couple have made huge lifestyle changes with Ellis having to deal with ACC for two years to get assistance to modify the family home to Lynne’s requirements. One priority was the construction of ramps.
Lynne was released from Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, after a five-month stay. The need for easy access to cater for Lynne’s needs meant she and Ellis lived in a motel and then a rented house in Gore before returning to their revamped home. ‘‘She was away from here [Knapdale) for two years,’’ Ellis said.
He said the help given to him and Lynne by their families and friends, organisations and support groups had been overwhelming. Staff in Ellis’ stables are also playing an important role.
The Winsloes have five caregivers with at least one always in the house to support Lynne. Ellis has also been trained to provide care.
‘‘It’s taken a long time working out what was needed to get the right care,’’ he said.
The horseman also required hospital treatment in September last year when the horse he was riding to the training track shied at something, fell and landed on top of him.
He fractured his skull and a cheek and suffered a brain bleed.
‘‘I was lucky ... I was in hospital for a week.’’
During the period he was not allowed to drive a car, one of his staff, Tracy Affleck, became his chauffeur and held a licence to drive the horse truck.
In his limited spare time, Ellis spends some of it duck and clay target shooting. People he had met in those sports, along with the owners of horses in the stable, were extremely supportive in the difficult times, Ellis said.
‘‘I’ve had down days but you’ve got to deal with it. Lynne’s handled it better than I have ... to have things right for her is what I want.’’
The three-day Grand National meeting holds mixed memories for the Winsloe family.
Ellis’s grandfather, Fred Ellis, won the national hurdles, as a jockey, 100 years ago. Fred was at the 1974 meeting when, after getting his photo taken with other former Grand National riders, died of a heart attack at the track.
During Lynne’s days as an amateur rider, she finished second in a steeplechase at the Christchurch track in 1980.