Easy call at tough time for Brooke

BROOKE Sadler was forced to make a tough call in February.

The young Inverleigh horsewoman had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and her promising pacer Tough Call needed to find a new home.

“It was probably the hardest decision I’ve had to make,” said Sadler, who was coming to terms with the health battle that lay ahead.

From afar, she had noted Bannockburn horseman Mick Cole, who was making his way in the sport.

“I saw how well Mick looked after his horses and so I asked if he would take Tough Call while I commenced chemotherapy,” Sadler said.

At the time Tough Call was a restricted C3 class pacer campaigning on Victorian country tracks.

“He was showing a bit of promise late last year and won a race on Ballarat Cup night in January,” she said.

At his first start for Cole, in March, Tough Call sat outside the leader at Geelong before finishing runner-up, beaten a head, and followed it up with two wins and three placings in his next five starts.

Tough Call’s first win in metropolitan class at Melton was a tonic for Sadler, who was in the fight of her life.

“This horse helped me so much getting through the dark times,” she said.

Tough Call emerged as a rising star in Victorian harness racing when he defeated several Inter Dominion-bound runners in the Group 3 TAB Multiplier Final at headquarters Tabcorp Park in July. Sadler dared to dream. For the past 15 years working with horses, she had harboured a deep-seated desire to harness a runner in her hometown cup.

“I pencilled it in as a possibility for the first time after he won the final at Melton,” she said.

In recent weeks, Sadler

Tough Call will be partnered by Kerryn Manning, who was in the sulky when the pacer took out the Group 3 final in July.

“Kerryn is such a great driver and the horse goes well for her,” she said,

Sadler is quick to acknowledge the efforts of Cole in getting Tough Call to cups class.

“Mick has done such a magnificent job with the horse and taken him to the next level,” she said.

Meanwhile Sadler is hoping for more good news as she looks to the future with a degree of optimism.

“The last operation was the third biopsy and the doctors seem to think I’m not far off remission,” she said.

While Sadler intends on returning to work at a thoroughbred stable in Modewarre, she is adamant her tough calls are behind her

“The next decision is an easy one,” she said.

“The horse will stay with Mick even when I’m back up and about.”