The sun was shining on the crops, the cows were mooing and the racehorses were standing proudly as if giving an invisible salute. A day after Col McKenna’s tragic death, he was taken on his final journey through his fields of dreams. And there was even a detour past his favourite seafood restaurant where waiters used to pencil in his cherished dish of oysters, prawns, crayfish and scampi even before he mentioned it.
There was also a five-minute stop outside the hotel he owned and loved, the Union Station in country Woolsthorpe. Janice McKenna, the wife of popular and respected racehorse owner and breeder Col who counted Caulfield Cups among his many racing triumphs, has told Racenet about her beloved husband’s final journey on Monday. Col McKenna, 74, died on Sunday after being diagnosed with a brain tumour just two weeks earlier.
“I promised Colin before he died that I would get him home, the one thing I kept on saying to him was, ‘Darling, I will get you home to the farm’,” Janice McKenna told Racenet. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be because from Sunday week ago, it was just all downhill. “In his final weeks, I never left his side in hospital, I slept there with him.
“After he passed away, the hearse came and met us in Melbourne with a beautiful coffin with his name on it, he wasn’t coming home in a van. “We made sure we went past Rubira’s – his favourite meal there was the oysters, the prawns, the crayfish, scampi – that was most Friday afte.
