MY CALL - A WEEK OF TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

By David Fowler | Tuesday, November 10, 2015

David Fowler is the principal thoroughbred caller for Radio TAB. David, who is a keen form student and punter, has enjoyed a lifetime involvement in the racing media. His personal blog, ‘My Call’, appears exclusively on HRO.

Life and death represent the beginning, the middle and the end.

Both were thrust upon us last week. Triumph and tragedy slapped together as if they were one and the same.

The feelgood story of Prince Of Penzance’s Melbourne Cup win was snuffed out when we awoke hours later to discover Tim Bell had fallen to his death from a 12 storey apartment.

It was easy to embrace the joy of Michelle and Stevie Payne, Darren Weir and the winning connections of the Cup winner. It was up close and personal.

Not so Bell’s ghastly end. Our imaginations ran wild visualizing the scant and somewhat provocative detail we were delivered through media outlets.

Personally, it’s hard to believe that well-mannered young man with the cheeky smile is gone.

How can it be?

A fatal racefall makes sense for us. Tragic but maybe seen and certainly understood. Imagining falling off an apartment building makes no sense.

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It’s rare for young people not to make mistakes.
It’s called life.

Bell confided to me the car accident he was involved in at the Gold Coast, now 18 months ago, was the last straw.

“I’ve embarrassed myself but I’ve embarrassed Mum and Dad. Never again,” he said.

Bell left the Gold Coast glamour strip in his wake and settled in Brisbane before leaving for Singapore a few months ago.

Already with a senior jockeys Premiership in the bag, the star was on the rise again.

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My first recollection of Tim Bell was how well he spoke and how young he looked.

I first interviewed him trackside in the summer of 2010 when an old favourite Ollie Vollie won at Doomben.

He had already established a riding reputation in New South Wales before his infrequent visits north of the border.

His eloquence amazed me. Was this a budding actor or a budding jockey?

His style combined with good manners never deserted him. You can’t buy those sort of attributes.

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It was five years ago when Stathi Katsidis lost his life away from the racetrack although the circumstances are strikingly different.

Yet in a tragic way, they are the same. Lives with lots to offer gone too soon.

Will his memory be perpetuated through a race name or some other form of recognition?

I trust mature debate is struck on this issue rather than a knee jerk reaction. No decision should be reached hastily.

But I would hope a south-east Queensland memorial service could be organised to allow those who can’t make it to the funeral to pay their respects.

There is a lot of them.

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