Bad news Warren, the “Frank and Beans” have nearly disappeared and Magda, you can now breathe easy as my stretch marks where my muscles once were, are much worse than your “roast chicken”, sun scorched skin. As for you Mary, with apologies to the Soup Nazi, “No hair gel for you”. There are “Plenty of things about Rupert” and every fucking one of them is a malignancy. The Rupert in me is here to stay unfortunately but I have made it my mission to outlive the 95 year old rat living in New York. I see he’s getting married again so with a bit of luck he’ll do a Billy Snedden and die on the nest.
This is a rough graph showing the rise in my PSA and subsequent drop after commencing dual therapies. One of the earliest measures the Urologists consider is the PSA Doubling Time which indicates how quickly the PSA Level will increase by 100% and the PSA Velocity which measures the change in PSA over time. My Doubling time, as indicated by my first two alarm bell ringers, was 1.1 months and the Velocity 12.8 ng/ml/mo. If the PSA Doubling Time is less than 3 (mine was 1.1) then the Prostate Cancer Mortality Rate is 20 times greater than if the Doubling Time is greater than 3. A Velocity of 0.75 is considered acceptable so mine being 12.8 was a long way from that. (Source: Prostate Specific Antigen. Author: Michael K David DO).
I guess the point I would like to emphasise to every male who reads Living With Rupert, is to please have regular PSA Tests. The aggressiveness of Rupert in me meant that an operation to remove the Prostate was never an option. Had I been given my regular PSA test in January it may well have shown my reading as being around my normal level of 4 and I may well have already departed for the great baseball field in the sky. Because my GP booked me in for a Blood Test in May with a follow up 2 weeks later, and then hastened my appointment with a Urologist, I’ve been given a chance to slow Rupert down. I’m grateful for that chance.
I start my second Chemo course of Arthur The King Of The Chemo tomorrow so I was reacquainted with Dexy The Midnight Runner this morning. Probably means I will be watching TV till the wee hours unable to sleep so any suggestions for shows to binge will be gratefully accepted. I handled the first Arthur infusion pretty well. My fatigue worsened, I had pretty bad bone pain in my legs for a few days and I’ve generally felt nauseous for most of the last three weeks but no throwing up at all so I think I’d rank Chemo side effects a good way below the pain of a really, really bad hangover.😄 A few of you drew my attention to a new Drug being used in conjunction with Hormone Therapy and Chemotherapy in Prostate Cancer patients. It’s name is Nubeqa and the results are promising in extending life expectancy in Stage 4 patients. My team of Specialists will tomorrow be discussing putting me on the new drug so fingers crossed I am a suitable candidate.
If you live on the punt for 40 odd years, you are guaranteed to have plenty of “bad beat” stories but I’m not going to focus on punting bad beats as they are simply a fact of life for anyone living on the punt (plus I’m not sure I have enough time left to even cover 10% of them). Rather I will focus on a few races that we lost as owners that we should have won and didn’t through no fault of the horses listed and one sporting bad beat that shaped my life for the better.
Pelicanrama in the 2YO Bathurst Gold Tiara. She started at $1.10 in the Final of this prestigious race and she was well over the odds. She could have ran the entire race next to the outside fence and would still have shit in. Unfortunately a cowboy drawn a barrier outside of us decided to take our legs in the run to the first turn and our race was over. Kerryn Manning was only just starting to drive in those days and her Dad Peter was behind The Pelican and probably with hindsight, discretion may have been the better part of valour, and had he restrained at barrier release and then gone forward, we would have won easily. Unfortunately the possibility of being poleaxed at the start never entered our collective heads. The Cowboy got a holiday from the Stewards and we got nothing. Bastard.😡
Trojan Twin in NSW Sires Stakes Races at Forbes and Albury. These were only heats of the Sires Stakes and they weren’t high prize money races. Trojan Twin was just a nice horse and won about $120,000 in his career. He was named after the College in Chicago my son John studied at, and in using the word “studied”, I really am taking a lot of journalistic license but that’s a story for another day when I write the XXX Rated John Story.🤣 To get to Forbes involved approximately 10 hours in a float from Peter Manning’s Great Western property and the trip to Albury was about 6 hours. In other words, they were hardly our local tracks but to make the Finals of the Sires Stakes you had to run in heats. In both races we were flattened by the same Driver on a horse called Jofess. Jofess went on to win Harness Racing’s biggest race, The Interdominion in Perth but thank Christ it wasn’t in the care of Bruce Harpley at that time. It was in fact trained and driven then by a great mate in Darren Hancock. We stayed at Darren and his Dad, Dick’s stables in Pheasants Nest when we raced in Sydney and I will be forever indebted to them for their hospitality. Trojan Twin ran second in both races and for one of the very few times in Peter’s long career, he lodged a protest in one of the bad beats. That demonstrates how pissed off Peter was. Jofess, driven by Bruce Hartley, beat us by a metre in the protested race and I have no doubt the interference cost us victory but the local Stewards surprisingly didn’t agree with my summation. Who would have thought: local Stewards preferencing a local Driver! Bastard😡.
Roman Aspect running second during the Spring Carnival. I’ve only ever raced a couple of Gallopers and Roman Aspect was a ripper. One of my very best mates, John Pate, asked me would I like to go in him just a few weeks before his first start as a 2YO at Flemington during the Spring Carnival. He ran a terrific race down the straight and finished about 4th or 5th (Chopper will know exactly where he finished😄) and the next week on Sandown Cup Day he won the Rawdon Stakes by about 5 lengths hard held. I can still remember the great race-caller Bill Collins stating in the run home something like “This isn’t a race. Roman Aspect has destroyed them.” He was turned out for a spell after crapping in at Sandown and 6 weeks later on New Year’s Eve he underwent surgery for a twisted bowel. I believe Alister McLean at Werribee performed the life saving operation and saved him. He returned to the races in the Spring as a 3YO and won The Mercedes Benz Stakes on Caulfield Cup day by 4 lengths ridden by Peter Cook. We gave Peter Cook a $2000 sling after the race but it mustn’t have been enough because he jumped off Roman Aspect to ride another runner the next week on Cox Plate Day. We ran second that day and headed to Flemington for their Carnival with great expectations. This was where the Roman Aspect bad beat occured. We were ridden by Harry White in (I think) The Carbine Stakes. Harry had the race track moniker “Handbrake Harry” and I have no idea why punters called him that🤔. This day we were beaten a neck by the heavily backed favourite, a horse called I think, The Challenge, ridden by Mick Ditman for Tommy Smith. After the race Bill Collins said it was “a great example of two outstanding jockeys getting the best out of their respective mounts. Mick Ditman wielding the whip vigorously and Harry White sitting quietly, riding hands and heels.” I’m not sure if bill was subtly suggesting we’d been “hand braked” but I know that’s what I thought. To make matters worse I’d had a $1000 each way at 16/1 on our horse. The bet was made with one Bookmaker and he asked me did I want it again. Different times. When I gave the punt away the Corporate Bookmakers wouldn’t let me back one to win $500. So glad I lived in the racing era that I did. Now for the sad ending to this tale. Shortly after the Spring Carnival, Roman Aspect burst his bowel and this time couldn’t be saved. We had the best of good luck being involved in such a terrific horse and the worst of bad luck losing him when he had an exciting future in front of him. Bastard😡.
Being left out of a Country Victoria Cricket Team to play the West Indies in 1975. This was the Tour when a young Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Andy Roberts appeared on the World Stage. As an aside, Richards had a pretty ordinary start to the Tour but in the last two tests Captain Clive Lloyd put him at the top of the order with Roy Fredericks and Viv scored two centuries and a fifty facing the opening attack of Lillee and Thompson, and the rest, as they say, is history, with Richards going on to be one of the very best the game has seen. Can you imagine how many times I could have dined out on the imagined story of Viv getting something in his eye just as I let one of my trademark outswingers go and he nicks it to Robbie Delminico behind the stumps. Never have to buy another beer in my life I reckon. Now back to my bad beat!
I absolutely loved cricket in those days and the West Indies players were my heroes. When I was left out of that Team I was absolutely devastated. The three Selectors could never give me a reason for my omission. One of the selectors, Bill Bonney, had retired from playing at that stage but John Turner and Freddy Tupper were still suiting up. I had one aim that local cricket season and it was to inflict as much pain on both John and Freddy as was humanely possible when we played against them. I can’t say I was an express pace bowler but when I shortened the wicket up to about 18 yards by charging past the popping crease, I became positively lethal! Only recently I heard that Tupper was black and blue from his knees to his neck after I’d finished my spell against him and even though it took me 45 years to get that news, I was still wrapped to hear it. A vindictive bastard aren’t I. I never had a spy to let me know how badly bruised Turner finished up but I like to think he finished up least as sore as Tupper. Bastards😡😡.
My disappointment at not playing that game was pretty much responsible for me giving the game away to concentrate on Baseball in 1976 and in hindsight, those bastards probably did me a favour by not selecting me. Baseball went on to provide me with a host of great friends and a lifetime of wonderful experiences and memories, so out of a bad beat something good grew.
I’ll let you know next week how I’ve coped with my second dose of Arthur and whether I was approved for the administering of Nubeqa. Until then, stay safe and for fuck’s sake men, get that PSA level checked. ⭕️❌
Living With Rupert 