Jenni is Australia's favorite raceehorse, there is no bigger fan than young Isaac. Here's why!
lsaac Saric never got to meet his sister Jasmina, but a rare eternal blood bond is why he is Pride of Jenni’s number one fan.
Which is also when on school holidays, Isaac isn’t at the Royal Melbourne Show, he is at Caulfield to see Jenni and go on a ride wilder than he could ever have had there.
So, there is eager Isaac (in his Jenni socks, pulled right up) at the pop-up Jenni shop buying a plushie, and given a lapel pin then bang - next he’s patting the real Jenni before the race when strapper Sammie Waters brought her to him, then meeting owner Tony Ottobre and jockey Declan Bates in the mounting yard, watching the race and then joining in the official photos.
When he gets home to Tarneit Isaac builds a stable for the plushie Jenni, uses an app to make a reel of his photos to prove it all happened (and show Nan and Pop), updates her race history on a board he has in his room and sits down to record a phantom call - his dream is to be the next Matt Hill, or just anything to do with horses!
Asked how old he is, the answer came back: “I’ll be nine on October 23,” then adds “that’s the day before the Cox Plate.” You can sense young Isaac has got a thing for racing.
Sadly, Pride Of Jenni won’t be going there despite a ticket to it with her third Feehan Stakes on Sunday, but wherever she does, Isaac and Mum Leanne will be there as they were on Sunday.
But where does this passion come from and where does Jasmina fit? It sounds a long bow but when you get to know Isaac and Mum, it becomes a treasure beyond any fairy story.
Leanne’s first daughter, Jasmina (Mina) died from cancer, “I was a very young mum at the time, I was 22, she was just five, with a cancer that metastasized around her body. We were in and out of hospital for eleven months before we lost her. It was such a whirlwind, we spent time at Ronald McDonald House she met Kylie Minogue, even Michael Jaclson paid a visit to the ward wearing a mask, we thought she only had a hop problem, then they gave her two weeks to live, after treatment we got to share her fifth birthday.”
That was 1997, Isaac doesn’t arrive until 2017 and that’s a story in itself before Jasmina teases Jenni to Isaac.
“All I ever wanted was children and I’d already lost my daughter and was turning 40 and been struggling, I had a nervous breakdown and didn’t know where I was heading, so I bought a dog (Chichoo, it was meant to be Oliver but never got there) and then amazingly a few months later I got pregnant naturally and that was Isaac (with her husband Michael.)
“He’s a miracle boy, so sensitive and caring, lives like no-one ever gets left behind in his world and that is where Jasmina comes in,” Leanne said.
“He has her pictures in his room and prays to her all the time, he always senses she is around, lets her know what he has been up to, he has some stories now.”
But we still aren’t at the Pride Of Jenni stage.
“He watches racing shows and searches YouTube and he found out the story of why all the Jenni horses are named after the girl who was taken young by cancer, like his sister, and it flows from there, but he is beyond passionate about it and talks to Jasmina about her.”
“He can reel off all the stats and dates, anything about Jenni, he just loves her.”
“He even wrote up a booklet from all he read on Wikipedia and gave it it to his Nan and Pop who were going away for three months, so we all know and he knows everything, but I am just proud of him as a caring person, he’s an achiever academically, studies piano and musical theory, but nothing beats his Jenni experience.”
When Leanne’s treasured dog needed to be put down a month ago, she was inconsolable, but with Isaac by her side - “I couldn’t even speak” - he got her through it, Chichoo was only 10 but Leanne believes it was that dog that delivered her Isaac.
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“A mum from Isaac’s school left an orchid on the front doorstep to help me after the dog was put down, Isaac was the pillar of strength and said something special would happen when it bloomed,” she said.
“And then a few weeks later it did, out in the sun and Isaac said, Chichoo had found Jasmina in heaven, that was very special.”
As Isaac watched Pride Of Jenni win the Feehan from the mounting yard with Tony Ottobre nearby and shaking his hand afterwards, Isaac had tears in his eyes.
He was in his own heaven. Thanks Jenni, thinking of you Jasmina. Now that’s racing.
PS: Isaac also got to meet Gai Waterhouse at Caulfield and had his photo taken with the first lady, another one for his special reel.
PS: Isaacs's father Michael suffers from incurable hereditary spastic paraplegia, which has progressed in recent years, which means his movement is severely restricted and he can’t share Jenni moments like Sunday’s with Isaac, but every photo taken was shared in real time.
“We have had Isaac tested for the same generic mutation and he will carry it but won’t have an onset of symptoms for now,” Leanne said.
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