James McDonald brushes past the throng of giddy owners and racegoers, the multi-millionaires he rides for, the legendary All Blacks coach, and makes a beeline for the wheelchair.
It’s hard to see it if you didn’t know it was there, but the jockey only likes to start talking once he’s standing right in front of it.
“I always have a joke with him and I said after his last ride for us, ‘I tell you what, you could be a bloody good jockey one day’,” Jack Van Duuren says. “He has a laugh.
“But I don’t think he realises how important that little gesture is to come over to my wheelchair and do that. Those are the little things that keep you going.”
Van Duuren will again wheel himself into The Everest mounting yard at Royal Randwick on Saturday, and the rest of the owners of Nature Strip, the world’s best sprinter, will congregate around him.
On a nearby patch of synthetic grass, Van Duuren jumped out of his wheelchair and managed to celebrate Nature Strip’s win in The Everest last year.
Nature Strip’s part-owner Jack Van Duuren with The Everest trophy.Credit:Wolter Peeters
Days before he was told he had four to six weeks to live after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He was booked to start chemotherapy on Monday.
“I looked like shit last year,” Van Duuren says. “That hit me like a 10-tonne bloody truck. I honestly thought then after we won The Everest that would be the last race I would be at. I look at the photo every once in a while and think, ‘bloody hell’. Now the kids say, ‘Dad, you look as you did 10 years ago’.
“I was very emotional and when we got home that night I couldn’t sleep and just sat there watching and watching the replay. It was very emotional stuff.”
A year on and Van Duuren, 76, is still fighting.
Jack Van Duuren with the Everest trophy after Nature Strip’s victory last year.Credit:Getty
He’s been told the cancer is lying dormant, and the brain tumour is not playing up as much as doctors thought it would. It allowed him the chance to fly to the United Kingdom to watch Nature Strip win at Royal Ascot in June, with a top hat made from plastic his neighbour bought at Bunnings.
On Tuesday night, he boarded a super yacht on Sydney Harbour for The Everest barrier draw and ran into Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys for the first time since Royal Ascot, where he told the NRL and horse racing supremo he looked better in the flesh than on television.
“He reminded me of it too,” Van Duuren laughs. “But how clever is he? He’s a workaholic and a genius. Good luck to him. And when we got home about 11 o’clock on Tuesday night, Sue my wife said to me, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going outside to have a whisky’. She said, ‘You can’t do that’.
“I said, ‘Sue, we’ve been married for 55 years and you’ve been telling me what I can’t do for 55 years and what happened with that?’ She said, ‘Well, you’ve never taken any bloody notice of it’. I said, ‘Well, I won’t take any notice of it tonight’.”
What he will take notice of is his pride and joy Nature Strip, set to start the shortest-priced favourite in the history of the $15 million The Everest as he tries to defend his title.
In between trainer Chris Waller, part-owner Steve Hansen and the rest of the chestnut’s owners, McDonald will find the man in the wheelchair, the hub of Team Nature Strip.
“You’ve just got to think positive and sometimes that’s difficult,” Van Duuren says. “But you’ve just got to do it. This horse has given me one helluva boost.
“There are three things that help keep me going: Nature Strip, Jameson whisky and chemotherapy. The one I like the most of the three is Nature Strip, a close second is Jameson whisky and I’m not really fond of chemo.
“But it seems to do the trick.”
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