It is the fragility of life. In one moment, just as you imagined things could not be much better, your world can be overturned.
Life was good for Brian and Sue Barton. They had been on their new property in the Southern Highlands at Canyonleigh for just over a year, had poured their hearts into setting up the place just as they had wanted, and were having success with their small team of greyhounds.
But then, just before Christmas in 2021, Sue became unbalanced one morning, wasn’t feeling herself, and after some prodding she visited her doctor. When her MRI results returned, it revealed an abnormal mass on her brain and Sue was rushed to hospital to undergo life-saving brain surgery. A week later came the devastating diagnosis that Sue had stage four terminal brain cancer.
“We were shattered. We sat in the lounge room and cried,” said Sue.
Brian added: “To hear you are going to lose your loved one to something like that, is just … it just cuts you down. You hear it, and see it, but you never want it to happen to someone you love. It’s just not fair.
“She has the nicest soul you would ever meet. Everyone says how great she is. She has changed my life for the better.”
In the midst of such a harrowing time for the family, came the glimmer of a shining light in the form of the little girl they called Annie – Wyndra All Class. Because of her ill health, Brian and Sue sent the greyhound to close friend Daniel Gatt to train.
Last month Wyndra All Class won the Group 1 ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Futurity Final, and despite spending the previous day in hospital, Sue made the trip to Wentworth Park to watch her Annie. It was one of the most emotional nights ever seen at a racetrack, and it was all was captured by the GRNSW cameras.
Tonight (Friday) at Richmond, Wyndra All Class will again chase Group Racing Glory in the heats of the prestigious Richmond Oaks.
