Bourke has ambitious winter plans with stable star

By Glenn Davis

Cancer survivor Tom Bourke hopes to be a headline maker for the right reasons in the winter if his promising sprinter Kai Mondo salutes at Rockhampton on Tuesday.

Kai Mondo will be chasing his fifth win at his 19th start in the Class 4 Plate over 1200 metres.

The four-year-old son of Heroic Valour has had two wins and three placings from his past six summer starts and is coming off a third to the Stuart Kendrick-trained King Spirit in a 1050 metre Benchmark race at Callaghan Park on February 5.

“He raced too fiercely last time and got caught outside the leader,” Bourke said.

“I think he could have gone closer to winning had he settled better.”

The 72-year-old Bourke has two horses in work these days after starting his career at Armidale in New South Wales when he was 20.

He then moved to Sydney for a short time working mostly as a breaker before securing a job as a private trainer at Grafton.

After shifting to train in Queensland, Bourke was on the move again where he became a popular figure at Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast before heading to Rockhampton where he’s been based for the past few years.

Bourke’s decision to relocate to the Sunshine Coast came after he acquired his best horse, Rocky King, who won 17 races and more than $600,000 in prizemoney.

Rocky King was rated highly enough by Bourke who sent him to Melbourne in the spring of 2014 for two starts.

Bourke’s first health battle came when he suffered a stroke in 2017 and the following year he beat a bout of prostate cancer.

“I lost the use of a few fingers after the stroke and the following year I had prostate cancer, but I had it removed,” he said.

“I’ve just been checked again and it’s all clear.”

Bourke’s health problems are still ongoing as he’ll soon enter hospital for surgery to repair the circulation in both legs.

“The circulation is blocked in both my legs so I’m having an operation soon,” he said.

“If they can’t fix it then they’ll put in some stents.”

Bourke believes Kai Mondo will be highly competitive at Callaghan Park and has pencilled in an ambitious winter program.

“I think he’ll race very well and if he does then I’ll put him away for the winter and look at the Rocky Newmarket and the Cleveland Bay in Townsville,” Bourke said.