Mishani Man Les Ross announces retirement as he confronts cancer battle

Mishani man Les Ross has talked about retiring many times – but this time it’s for real as he confronts a cancer battle.

Trainer Les Ross (right) who is retiring with prostate cancer, and colourful owner Mike Crooks. Picture: Supplied.

Mishani man Les Ross will hand in his training license, revealing a “scary” battle with prostate cancer which will soon see him go under the surgeon’s knife.

Trainer Ross’s decision to call it quits at the end of the racing season will mean an end to one of the most colourful eras in Queensland racing, his racing partnership with larrikin owner Mike Crooks.

Crooks and Ross have been a formidable duo with their horses with the ‘Mishani” moniker being big players in the two-year-old ranks in the Sunshine State.

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Trainer Les Ross (right), who is retiring, and colourful owner Mike Crooks. Picture: Supplied.

But Ross, who had his first starter as a trainer in outback Cunnamulla on Anzac Day, 1998, will walk away from racing on the same day he goes to hospital to have his troublesome prostate taken out.

“The day that my license runs out and I finish training, July 31, that’s the day I am having my prostate out,” Ross told Racenet.

“It hit me like a tonne of bricks when I found out I had cancer. Recently, I’ve been waking up at night and thinking about how the surgery is going to go.

“It worries me a bit what is going to happen.”

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Mike Crooks and Les Ross. Picture: Supplied.

Ross, 60, who recently revealed he hadn’t been able to read or write for the majority of his training career, has often contemplated retirement in the past five years.

But he says this decision is final.

After his recovery from prostate cancer surgery, he plans to travel around Australia in his Winnebago and let his vocal cords do the rest.

“I want to go on the road and do karaoke,” Ross said. “It (retirement) it scares me, because there’s no more income, and I’ve still got to live.

“But the bottom line is that if I renewed my training license, I would be too tempted to keep training.

“I have told Crooksy and my other owners, and they have been very good about it. I have been saying I have been going to retire for many years, but this time I’m serious.”

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The dynamic duo.

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Crooks told Racenet that, with Ross retiring, he planned to appoint current foreman Donna Stanbridge on a trial basis to take charge of his Mishani empire of horses in the new racing season.

Crooks, who made his fortune building swimming pools, said Ross was deeply emotional when he rang him earlier this week to tell him he would be retiring.

But he retires with Crooks’ blessing and the two will remain great mates.

“The thing about it is that people won’t believe it, because Les has threatened to retire so many times,” Crooks said.

“But he is ready and this is the right timing for Les. He was very emotional telling me, because he thought I would blow up.

“But I’m happy for him. He has taught me a heap. He’s a mate of mine, I think he thought I wouldn’t want to be his mate if he pulled the pin on training. We have had some good times, a couple of ordinary times, but if we have had a rare disagreement we quickly say that’s over and done with and let’s move on.”

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Mike Crooks and Les Ross and the Mishani operation's soon to be new head trainer Donna Stanbridge. Picture: Supplied.

Crooks said that while Ross would no longer be the head trainer, little would change with the production line of the Mishani horses.

“We aren’t going to change too much and we are going to keep the system that Les has taught me and we have learned together,” Crooks said.

“We are going to give my foreman a go, I don’t want to rush in at the moment and take a new trainer on.”

Originally published as Mishani Man Les Ross announces retirement as he confronts cancer battle