Racing to better health

By Peter Sweeney
Pat Lalor was hills bound to chair a meeting of the Healesville Picnic Racing Club in 2005 when he asked the driver of the car, club secretary Michelle Purvis, to pull over near Cockatoo.
Overcome by a coughing fit, Mr Lalor wanted to get some fresh air.
On one knee on the side of the road, he blacked out. A nurse was in the first car that came along, and she called an ambulance. The next “fresh air” Mr Lalor got was one month later – when he gingerly strode from Dandenong Hospital – after recovering from a ruptured aorta.
The vascular surgeon who saved his life had walked out of Dandenong Hospital and was driving his car home as Mr Lalor was being rushed in after blacking out.
The surgeon took a phone call and was told there was “an emergency”. Mr Lalor didn’t wake for five days, when he was told how lucky he was to survive.
Alongside Pat Lalor’s personal details on his hospital records, was written ‘farmer’. Greg Self, the vascular surgeon, inquired if he had been a lifelong farmer. “No,” Mr Lalor replied, saying he had bought a farm after retiring.
“What did you do before?” Mr Self inquired. Just as Mr Lalor was saying he had been the chairman of stewards for the Victoria Racing Club (now RVL), the vascular surgeon said: “I know you. I’m a member (of the race club) and my mum is the doctor at Moonee Valley.”
The pair still see – and chat horses – when Mr Lalor visits Mr Self for check-ups. But the ruptured aorta wasn’t the start and end of Pat Lalor’s health challenges.
A melanoma was cut from his back not long after. Now, he is fighting cancer, with his biggest assets – a positive nature, loving partner, good friends, cattle, Jack, a quarterhorse and a dog, Tiger.
Slight in stature, respectful, good humoured and with better stories in his memory bank than you’d hear at a sportsmen’s night (except that his are true), a year ago Mr Lalor was found to be iron deficient, his blood count down.
Visits to an oncologist and a haematologist – and the tests that go with it – have confirmed he has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As it does, chemotherapy treatment was knocking him around – and then in January, he contracted pneumonia.
“I was in hospital for nearly a fortnight; my immune system was broken down,” Mr Lalor said. Pneumonia now blown away, tests for his cancer continue. Two weeks ago, Pat Lalor had bone marrow taken and last week his lymph glands were tested – via his throat.
“A few weeks ago, they found a couple of spots and they aren’t sure about them,” Mr Lalor said.
“We’ll know pretty soon where I’m at. It never ends, but I reckon I’m looking all right. And I’m still upright, which is much better than the alternative.”
Pat Lalor, rising 78, and his partner, Yvonne Blackwood, live on 45 hectares at Nar Nar Goon. There’s a touch of royalty about the front gate, where a sign on the neatly maintained yellow picket fence tells you the property is titled ‘Balmoral Park’. (The English Royal family estate where William and Kate went after marrying is also Balmoral Park ).
The couple met through racing, both being around horses most of their lives.
At the height of their professional careers, Mr Lalor was the VRC chairman of stewards for nearly 17 years; while Yvonne spent 24 years as the chief executive officer of the Cranbourne Turf Club. She is presently on the committee of the Pakenham Racing Club.
They bought ‘Balmoral Park’ in 1997 – a year after Mr Lalor finished as the boss of the racing ‘police’. They used to run cattle and calves, but switched to steers a year ago.
“Suppose you could say we’ve backed a loser,” non-betting Mr Lalor said.
“I was looking to get into something and we decided on steers. Should have stayed in cattle, because the prices have gone through the roof. But it wasn’t like that for 10 years before that.
“I’ve always loved farming. I was one of 10 children and we were reared on 15 hectares at Healesville, a property originally owned by my great grandfather. It was a great playground and there was no time for getting into trouble.
“When I was working as a steward, I had a 20-hectare property at Iona (near Cora Lynn). It was somewhere to go and get away from it all. I sold it three years ago.
“I enjoy pottering around the property. For three months, I sat sick in that chair there. Putting a saddle on my horse every morning and riding around the property checking on the steers sure beats that (sitting down).”
These days, Pat Lalor – apart from when he lunches with old cobbers who were on the committee of, or who are members of the Collingwood Football Club – “lives in overalls”- something he very rarely used to get into.
And, apart from his health issues, he looks nearly as relaxed in running as the freakish mare, Black Caviar.