 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2004
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Campbell McJorrow |
Domiciled in Otahuhu, Auckland, McJorrow was on-course at Addington to witness the victory, and within seconds of their horse's super performance he was on the phone to his loved one to share the delight with her. Sadly, celebrating Winforu's special moments in this unusual way is just something that the couple have had to live with in recent times, because Wych has been hospitalised ever since she suffered a severe stroke in July, 2001. After initially battling through other complications including pneumonia, Wych has impaired speech and still finds it extremely difficult to walk and is basically wheelchair-bound, so her trips to the racetrack are confined to local meetings at best. And this week she had the first of three scheduled operations to try and rectify a perforated bowel, totally unrelated to her stroke, so the victory by Winforu could not have come at a better time.
"Mary's stroke was so bad that initially it was wondered whether she would survive at all, and she spent a very long time in the Intensive Care Unit at Middlemore Hospital," McJorrow said. "But she came through that, and for the last twelve months she has had her own room at the Laura Ferguson rehabilitation Trust in Auckland, which is only about a kilometre away from Alexandra Park. She has seen three or four of his wins at the Park, and one of them at Cambridge, which she gets a great thrill out of. Obviously she is not able to travel to Christchurch, though. I tend to follow the horse around the country, amd Mary wants me to be there even if she can't," he said.
McJorrow (48) and Wych (56) have been together for 17 years. They met in Auckland when Wych went for a job interview at the company where McJorrow was the Managing Director; 'Cupid' fired a couple of arrows, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. A trained auditor, Wych handled the secretarial side of McJorrow's businesses "brilliantly" prior to having to step aside when she suffered the stroke.
"I developed an interest in horses as a child, because I grew up in a two-story house in Ashburton and could look across the road and see them thundering around the racecourse," McJorrow said. "We had the Bebbingtons and the Lochheads as neighbours, so there was always plenty of opportunities to have rides in the sulky. Mary and I have raced a couple of horses, being involved in the likes of Bonanza Magic from Geoff Small's stable and Justa Toff, Just An Icon and Lover Boy with John Lischner and Ken Barron, but we always thought we would like to breed one or two. We were determined that they were going to be by In The Pocket. Mary wanted to do the pedigree research, and to her credit she spent weeks and weeks and put a lot of effort into finding a couple of suitable mares."
The couple borrowed Kamwood Byrd to breed Winforus, who was sold to America after a couple of placings here, and Beheliem to get Winforu. Feeling like proud, new parents they were there to see Winforu at the property of the mare's owners Steve and Ann Phillips the day he was born. "He was quite unlucky as a 2-year-old, because he got a really bad eye injury after getting caught in a fence and at one stage he had the vet attending to him three times a day. Then he went to Christchurch for the big juvenile events he got mud fever, not in one foot but in all four. It sort of set him back a bit, that is why I believe his win this season in the Great Northern Derby was good for him psychologically. Geoff says he is a lovely horse to have around the place and train, and I think he knows when he does well."
McJorrow has worked in the food industry ever since leaving university and has always been interested in desserts. Looking for 'the big smoke' he moved himself from Marlborough to Auckland and started up two companies that deal with food manufacturing, importing and exporting, and apart from distributing extensively nationwide these companies have now grown to the point where they export to 14 countries and import from five. The products are primarily dessert-related and frozen, and include the likes of pavlovas, gateaus, bavarios, cheesecakes, crepes and savoury burritos and tortillas.
Winforu's victory in the Flying Stakes was as 'sweet' as McJorrow's desserts, and he is hopeful of another bold showing in the NZ Derby. He will be there of course, and Mary will be cheering from her bedside at the other end of the country. "She has got her own television, and a few of the doctors and nurses were crowded around her bed the other night to watch the race. Apparently they all had a great time, because some of them had backed him as well. The staff at Laura Ferguson have been really great to us. Mary has got lots of framed photos on the walls and she loves the ribbons and rugs. Her pride and joy is the dress rug that Winforu got for his Great Northern Derby win - it is on her bed ever night. "The horse's latest outing really was a win for Mary," he said. "I hope that things like this can give her that will to live and that reason to get better, and show her that there is in fact a whole other world outside of hospital life."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 31Mar04