Rothfire breeder’s brush with death
IF THE Thriller From Chinchilla can show the fighting spirit of his breeder who has dodged a frightening brush with death over the last few weeks, he will be winning Saturday’s Group 1 Doomben 10,000.
News Corp can reveal Rothfire’s breeder Wally Gleeson, a former champion jockey and ex-butcher, is lucky to be alive after serious health scares on two fronts.
Diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, Gleeson (pictured) had surgery last month but that was only the start of the medical dramas as he collapsed after being released from hospital and had to be rushed back for emergency surgery.
On the way back to his Chinchilla property from cancer surgery in Brisbane, Gleeson and wife Jill were staying with one of their sons in Toowoomba when Jill found her husband collapsed and unresponsive on the floor.
“It turned out I had massive internal bleeding in my guts, through no fault of anyone, and my blood pressure had dropped badly and I had collapsed and was unconscious. I had no pulse,” Gleeson said. “Fortunately the son I was staying with, he is a (medical) specialist and he got me in the right position and tried to stabilise me until the ambulance arrived.
“It was all very serious, I was grey on the floor and they transported me back to Brisbane where they operated again and stabilised my blood pressure.” Gleeson, who bred Rothfire at his boutique breeding operation in Chinchilla, 300km northwest of Brisbane, was in hospital watching on TV when Rothfire resumed and ran fifth in the Victory Stakes.
Discharged from hospital last week, the 71-year-old Gleeson is now on the mend.
“The good news is it seems like they got the cancer out, just in time,” Gleeson said.
“Because of everything that has happened, Jill and I have really taken stock of our lives and we are going to slow down quite a bit.
Now he’s hoping Group 1 winner Rothfire can create headlines of his own on Saturday and give him a timely pickme-up after.
Rothfire is currently an unfancied $15 shot in Doomben 10,000 betting – the longest price he has been in his career – but Gleeson thinks he can overcome the odds.