Sir Barwood a lifesaver
Sir Barwood a lifesaver
For veteran Brookton trainer Ivan “John” Vuletich, his promising greyhound, Sir Barwood, is a constant reminder of a narrow escape which almost cost him his life. Not because of the talented black dog’s characteristics or speed, but rather the incredible story behind the name given to the chaser, who has won two of its last three race starts.
Vuletich, 70, admits he’s a very stubborn bloke. The son of a Yugoslavian man and an Italian woman, he says his “firey breed” was destined before he’d even taken his first breath. Born and raised in the knockabout town of Kalgoorlie, Vuletich’s family left the Goldfields in 1963 and he then made the move to Pingelly, a two-hour drive from Perth, where he completed a mechanical apprenticeship.
The following two decades saw him work his way up the ranks to eventually become the boss of a Holden workshop, before leaving to starting his own mechanical business. After being introduced to the greyhound industry in the early 1990s, Vuletich later took out his own trainer’s licence and had to juggle training in conjunction with running his business until later retiring from the tools.
“A bloke came to town and asked me if I’d give him a hand, so I used to go over there and do the work for him,” Vuletich said. “I learnt a bit off Claude Powell, Geoff Leppard and Hans Spykers, then I did my own thing. I’ve always only had about eight dogs. I’ve never liked to have too many because you’ve got to put a lot of time into them, otherwise I don’t think you get the results.”
Vuletich has bred, reared and broken-in every dog that he’s raced for the past 15 years. His most recent litter, a group of nine pups from Big Daddy Cool bitch, Super Cool Boom, has delivered arguably his most exciting bunch yet. However, just as the young greyhounds were nearing their race debuts earlier this year, the start of their careers were delayed when an initial stomach pain led to a near-fatal experience for Vuletich.
“I’m pretty stubborn and my pain barrier is a bit too high,” Vuletich said. “I just keep going and going, hoping things are going to come right, but it got that bad I had no energy, no strength, nothing.”
Vuletich’s deteriorating health saw him pass blood and, as a result, he booked in to see a prostate specialist. Leading up to the appointment, he concedes he was expecting the worst; cancer.
“The doctor said ‘you don’t have cancer but your bladder is joined to your bowel’,” Vuletich said. “Then he walked away and I jumped off the table and said ‘that’s why I’m passing blood through there then’ and he stopped and goes ‘what!’. His eyes were as big as golf balls and he said ‘you better get straight in there and have an MRI’. He could’ve told me to go away because he’d done his job, this wasn’t his department, but he was worried about me. He sent me in to have an MRI and then he wrote me a letter to a surgeon and he got me straight in. I don’t think I would’ve been around much longer if I hadn’t of got sent in there.”
The above-and-beyond diligence by the doctor proved to be a life-saving manoeuvre for Vuletich. After being fast-tracked into the operating theatre, his surgeon was fortunately able to work some magic before it was too late.
“I didn’t realise how sick I was,” Vuletich said. “My bowel was joined to my bladder and there was a hole through it. It was going both ways, through my blood stream and everything. The surgeon operated on me and pulled a bit of my bowel out and a bit of something else. They think somewhere along the line I had an ulcer on my guts and it’s busted, and all the stuff has gone down between my bowel and bladder. Then it’s joined and rotted a hole through there for years.”
Vuletich believes his stomach troubles stemmed from an earlier incident which also nearly cost him his life.
“My appendix burst years ago,” he said. “I had half-an-hour to live. I walked in and they said ‘race him straight to hospital’. I said ‘how crook do you have to be to be dead?’ and the doctor said ‘you had half-an-hour left, John, and you can thank whoever brought you here’. He said he cut me open, rolled me over, tipped all the stuff out of me and then operated. I was in hospital for months with tubes stuck down sucking the poison out and that’s what would’ve done it, I reckon.”
The findings during Vuletich’s more recent health scare even surprised his doctors. Despite having performed numerous surgeries where bowels had joined to the bladder, Vuletich’s surgeon later told him that it was the first case where he had seen a hole form through the connection. Following the successful operation, Vuletich was thinking of how he could express his gratitude to the surgeon.
“His name was Doctor Barwood and I said to him ‘I’d like to name one of my pups after you’,” Vuletich said. “He said ‘can it run?’ and I said ‘a lot quicker than you ever will!”
That pup turned out to be Sir Barwood, who Vuletich says had been showing him the most ability of the bunch behind the scenes. However, his near-death experience and lengthy lay-off ahead meant that he had to postpone racing plans for his latest litter.
“I usually like to start them around the 22-month mark,” Vuletich said. “But I had to stop mucking around with them. The bloke that helps me out just kept them on the walking machine and fed them for me. I had everything he had to do written down, and when I got out I started working them up again.”
Fast-forward some five months later and Vuletich had only just recovered from the significant health scare and was finally able to resume training as normal again. Sir Barwood then won his first trial on June 13 and followed consecutive fourth-placings at his first two race starts with three runner-up finishes before breaking through with an impressive maiden win at Cannington on August 1.
“I had told Doctor Barwood ‘when it wins, I’ll buy you a photo’,” Vuletich said. “You see thank-you cards everywhere from people he’d operated on, so when the dog won I took the photo in. I’ve been told there’s a lot of jealous specialists at that place now!”
Other dogs from the now-deceased Super Cool Boom, who Vuletich said he lost to septicaemia when the litter was just three weeks old, have also shown sound ability for the in-form hobby trainer. His last 20 starters have netted six wins and four second-placings from five individual chasers.
“I’m very happy with them,” Vuletich said. “They’re all from the same litter and they come from a pretty good line. Their old grandmother was Abbadale Belle, who won a good race over 720 metres at Cannington.”
Vuletich is confident the litter will continue to improve and he is looking forward to the unveiling unraced dogs from the same family in the near future.
“There’s still two more at home that have been a bit crook, but I’ve just about got them ready to go now,” he said. “They’re all going good and I reckon they’re going to get better. The way I rear them and muck around with them, I take my time and don’t rush them. The last litter I bred were still winning races and running good time as five-year-olds.”
Despite his recent purple patch of form, Vuletich concedes his training days may be numbered. His five-acre Brookton property is located a one-and-a-half-hour drive from the Cannington Greyhounds track and a two-hour drive from the Mandurah track, which is taking its toll on the grandfather.
“It didn’t worry me before but I’m getting a bit ancient now and I get bloody tired,” Vuletich said. “The van has done 600,000 kilometres now and the other one had done 770,000 before I sold it. I said to my wife the other day that this will be the last litter. It’s getting too hard, but I might see what Midnight Gas is like when she’s finished. I might still breed from her, she’s a flying machine.”
Vuletich has three dogs engaged to race at Mandurah tonight, including last-start winner Rusty Wren.
Michael Heaton