Since it’s first edition Australian Pacing Gold has been serving up “Hollywood” stories for its conquerors, including WA’s De Campo family who took the lot in the 1991 classic.
Bred by Alan Galloway but owned by the De Campo family, trained by dad Ray and driven by his son Andrew, Son Of Otara transformed his favourtism status into a life altering victory in the $491,000 Foster’s Australian Gold 2YO Final.
Andrew De Campo joined Toby McKinnon on SENTrack’s Trots Life this week to reminisce on the magical moment as we countdown to Saturday night’s Australian Pacing Gold finals at Tabcorp Park Melton.
Picture courtesy gloucesterpark.com.au
“My father bought (Son Of Otara) at the yearling sales for $12,500, he was just a little nuggety type of a horse,” De Campo said. “When we got him home he was very, very small but he always showed a lot of speed.
“My father had a bit of an eye for young horses. He always said the reason he bought the horse was because it was born on his wife, my mum’s, birthday. I don’t know if that was the reason, but we went along with that and the horse went out and won a couple of big races.”
In fact, after a fifth on debut at Bunbury when he shied and broke, Son Of Otara reeled off five consecutive victories and would win eight of his next nine starts, including the magical APG moment at Albion Park on May 4 1991.
“My mum come over (to Queensland), she owned the horse, and my sister, she owned a share in it too, and my brother-in-law and wife Sharon. There were six of us over there, we didn’t know much about Queensland,” De Campo said.
“Luckily Kevin Seymour looked after us really really well, took us out on his boat and we thought we were in Hollywood. It was a great time, to come from a little town in Western Australia called Bunbury, it’s probably bigger now, it was a big eye-opener, taking on the big boys.
“The horse led and won the Saturday night before hand, and then going into the final luck went our way, we drew a barrier and then things went our way. It was a couple of weeks I’d never forget about my life.”
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