Craig Russell puts health scare behind him

By Tony McMahon

Rockhampton trainer Craig Russell can certainly attest to time being the great healer.

Craig is enjoying a purple patch on the track, having won three races with just the two horses under his care in the space of two weeks.

However, rewind the clock 12 months and it was a different story.

Craig was enduring a difficult period, undergoing a series of complex surgeries in Brisbane from a form of cancer that resulted in the loss of his right ear.

It was a trying period for Craig, wife Theressa and his three children as well as his parents Gordon and Colleen.

The Central Queensland racing industry swung into assistance mode, both financially and supportively.

 “I am very grateful and appreciative for what everyone did for us,” Craig said.

“The original surgery which resulted from a sun cancer took 15 hours.

“The ear was removed and a skin graft put in place. I also had to have six weeks of radiation in Brisbane.”

Craig then had to undergo four more operations for the removal of kidney stones which were discovered.

“The doctors were amazed as the biggest kidney stone was the size of a golf ball,” he said.

“All up I had six operations down there. It never rains but it pours.”

Now 12 months down the track, there has been a pot of gold so to speak under the rainbow that has shone on Craig.

It has come in the form of an aristocratically bred thoroughbred named Way Back When, raced by Craig’s greatest racing fan, his father ‘Rusty’.

Way Back Then won for the father and son combination at Mackay on October 21 and then repeated the dose again at Callaghan Park last Friday.

“Dad and I liked his breeding being by a champion and from a Group 1-winning mare Once Were Wild that won an AJC Oaks,” Craig said.

“Dad thought let’s give him a go and bought him.”

Way Back When won for the Russells at Callaghan Park in Maiden company last July not long after they acquired him and just before Craig’s cancer was diagnosed.

So, when Craig had to close-up shop, the mare did likewise, enjoying the spoils of a long-enforced spell.

Just three days before Way Back When’s most recent win, lo and behold his younger stablemate Round The Fire bolted home a winner at the Melbourne Cup Day races at Gladstone.

So, for Craig Russell a 100% winning record with his two horses, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Craig’s currently boasts a near clean bill of health, and in about six months’ time, he will have a prosthetic ear fitted.

In the meantime, it’s all systems go for Way Back When, Round The Fire and their trainer Craig Russell.