LEGENDARY Junee pacer Our Sir Vancelot has passed away, aged 26.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The three-time Inter Dominion champion passed away peacefully at Trevor and Maree Allamby’s Junee property last week.
Our Sir Vancelot gave the Allamby and Hancock families the time of their life through the 90s, winning 48 races and more than $2 million in prizemoney.
He became the first horse to win three straight Inter Dominion Championships, 1997-98-99, and will be remembered as one of Australia’s greatest pacers of all time.
Allamby said Our Sir Vancelot changed their lives.
“He gave us the biggest thrill of our lives,” Allamby recalled.
“He changed it enormously and bought us our new home.
“You never get a horse like that, we were very lucky.”
Our Sir Vancelot was the biggest name in harness racing through the 90s, no more so than in Junee, where he was given a civic reception after his second Inter Dominion win.
The stallion’s last official duty was at the wedding of Trevor and Maree’s daughter, Jane, two years ago where he carted the bride in to the reception at Illabo Hall.
“He was part of the furniture,” Allamby said.
“His last few days, we knew things didn’t look too good so we brought him up to the house and he spent his time on the front lawn, that’s where he deserved to be, and we kept a close eye on him.
“He was our good mate.”
Our Sir Vancelot was bred by the Allamby family and trained by Brian Hancock.
The son of Vance Hanover won three Inter Dominions, the 1997 Miracle Mile, along with Cups and features across Australia and New Zealand.
Allamby rated Our Sir Vancelot’s first Inter Dominion Championship, in Adelaide, as the highlight.
“They were all special but I think the first one because we just didn’t ever think we would win an Inter Dominion,” he said.
“That race was that close they needed an hour to decide the photo finish. It felt like an hour, but it was really five or 10 minutes.”
Allamby said it was Our Sir Vancelot’s brain that made him such a champion.
“That had a lot to do with it, his mental ability,” he said.
“He was super smart, a really smart horse.
“We were in Tassie for one of the Inters and we badly needed points to get into the final. There was a bit of a ruckus in the race and he missed out. That day the horse knew he had missed out, I washed him down and he just wanted to be left alone, he was that disappointed.”
Our Sir Vancelot was given the honour of being buried, standing up, at the Allamby’s property. He rests alongside his mother and grandmother.
