Ocean Billy’s victory in the $500,000 Barfoot & Thompson Auckland Cup is more than your normal feel-good story revolving around a popular couple’s ultimate feature race win.

The chestnut gelding’s trainer, co-owner and co-breeder Bill Pomare has had cause in the days since to reflect on what might have been if the challenges he encountered from childhood had got the better of him. But now at 72 years the Rotorua electrical supplies entrepreneur can take satisfaction that he now counts himself and his wife Suzi amongst those blessed with the good fortune to wear the Group One winners’ badge.

“My upbringing was beyond tough; it was brutal,” Pomare told RaceForm this week as he opened up about his extraordinary life. “My twin brother Jim and I were brought up by a cruel uncle who we lived in fear of. The number of times he knocked me unconscious, he was an angry man who made us shake in our boots, we were always hungry and had to endure unbearable hardship.”

The Pomare twins were born in Te Kopuru, near Dargaville on the northern shores of the Kaipara Harbour. Their mother was only 15 years old at the time, herself the victim of the worst kind of abuse at the hands of someone she hardly knew. Thus the platform was laid and the two boys were forced to make the best of their desperately sad situation when they were sent to Wanganui to be raised by distant relatives under whangai protocols.  

“Our closest friend was a German Shepherd bitch who would look out for us and provide us with the only warmth we knew,” says Pomare. “They were terrible times and the day I turned 15 I was off with a change of clothes in my swag and nothing else.

“I took the first job I could find on a dairy farm but I was very unsettled and spent a lot of time just drifting, sleeping in unlocked cars in car-yards, under bridges, anywhere I could. I had a lot of different jobs – freezing works, a poultry farm, on rubbish trucks, washing dishes, and then I got caught doing something stupid and did three months in borstal.”

Pomare realised he had to make something of his life, leading to an electrician’s apprenticeship with the Wanganui Power Board and a meaningful relationship followed by marriage to his first wife Gail.

“Things were good, it was the early 1980s when I decided to leave my job and buy a business repairing electrical appliances. Within a week I had tripled the turnover, it was hard work, six days a week and long hours, but I got it to the stage we were banking five grand a week.”

 But even then, life wasn’t perfect. The marriage ended and Pomare moved north, settling in Rotorua to begin a business based on what he had left behind in Wanganui. His second wife Pauline meant happy times and a second brood of children, but then he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

“I had to have an operation, they took away seven-eighths of my stomach and they told me I had a year to live. I wasn’t having any of that, I owed it to my family to stick around but it was more tough times – a single potato was enough to fill me up. I started taking daily iron tablets and having B12 injections every week and after doing some more research we went to see a natural healer in Rarotonga.

“I gave up processed food, stuck to the basics – meat and vegetables, that sort of stuff – and I never fell below 12 stone. Then we decided to take a family holiday, took our four kids to Disneyland and carried on to Europe, but while we were away Pauline was diagnosed with cancer. She didn’t give up but after three years sadly she died.”

Pomare and his wife had gathered some thoroughbreds around them, dating back to an inspirational purchase he made at a Claudelands yearling sale in 1988. “Pauline grew up in Levin, where between her nursing studies she rode work for Grant Searle. One of the horses she always talked about was a pretty smart filly called Flying Idyll, so when I saw she had a yearling by Beaufort Sea in the sale I went along with (Rotorua trainer) Ken Thompson for a look.  

“When I asked the bloke selling her what sort of a reserve he had on her, he said he wanted $28,000. I was no chance at that price but when she was in the ring the bidding had got nowhere near the reserve and stopped at $9,000. I thought I’d try my luck at $9,500, and you wouldn’t know it, she was knocked down to me!

“Pauline was at the sale but she didn’t have a clue what I was up to. I had got myself into a bit of a situation, so I began by telling her that someone else had bought this filly and we were going to take it home for them. In the end I had to fess up, but it all worked out for the best.

“We named her Flying Beau and she was a winner at two and finished third in the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes, then she went to stud and produced six winners. All the good horses we’ve had are descended from her.”

 That list includes Flying Free, who won nine races and became Pomare’s first stakes winner in the 2002 Rotorua Stakes at Arawa Park, and she in turn produced Cool Storm, winner of the Listed Newmarket Handicap at Ellerslie before producing the family’s Auckland Cup hero, Ocean Billy.

“I bred him in partnership with Justine Sclater, who had a share in Ocean Park and I had the mare. The plan was to breed a horse we could sell, but things didn’t work out that way and I ended up with him. I gave a share to an old mate of mine from the racing club, Peter Ludgate, and it’s been great to enjoy all this with our families.

“Peter couldn’t make it up to Ellerslie but his two sons and their wives did and then we all had a good old get-together at home on Sunday. A whole bunch of my family were at the races, the rest of them back in Rotorua had a big welcome waiting for us when we got home on Saturday night, so it’s been pretty full-on.

“I reckon it only sunk in on Monday morning when I read the papers – all weekend I was waiting for someone to tell me I was just dreaming – but when it finally did I rang the business and told them not to expect me in for a couple of days.”

Horses and work apart, an integral part of Bill Pomare’s life is his wife Suzi. After being familiar with each other and she helping out with trackwork duties, their relationship grew to marriage on his 60^th birthday. Twelve years later horses and family remain a shared pleasure.

“I’m so lucky to have a wife like Suzi, she’s a wonderful person. Pauline had a way with horses and it’s the same with Suzi – she’s a true animal lover. She talks to all the horses here and they talk back; as soon as Olly (Ocean Billy) sees her he calls out to her.

“He’s a hard case that horse, he’s such a gopher, but she connects with him just like she does with all the others. Suzi has one complaint though – she wants to know why I can’t spend $130 a month on new shoes for her just like I do for the racehorses!”

As Pomare comes to terms with his new-found status as Group One trainer, owner and breeder, he refuses to lose sight of his origins and the road to where he now finds himself.

“I never had anyone to make my lunch,” he says in an admirable analogy of what he went through as a child, “and I’ll never stop encouraging people not to give up and to live their dreams. I could have spent a life of crime – it was a narrow call – but I knew there had to be something better.

“I could have grown up all bitter and twisted but that’s not me. My kids know my story and that has inspired them to do well and not expect me or anyone else to prop them up. There are people out there who do need a leg up and I’m happy to mentor them through the service work that I still do.

“The reward for me is to see their whole attitude change and to know that I might have played some small part in getting their lives back.”

Pomare describes his wide family that now extends to great-grandchildren as the most important part of his whole being. That includes his Melbourne-based son J.P. (Joshua) Pomare, who has made a name for himself as a best-selling author, beginning with his first novel Call Me Evie, the ominous story of a young woman held captive in rural New Zealand.

“Joshua is going to write my life story,” says his proud father. “I want that to happen and hopefully it will inspire others.”

No doubt there will be a special chapter devoted to the horses that have been such a part of Bill Pomare finding his happy place, and most of all the horse named after the Trinidad rhythm and blues singer famous for hit songs such as Caribbean Queen and When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going.

“I grew up on Billy Ocean’s music and when I ended up with a horse by Ocean Park I thought ‘What a good name that would be’. But they wouldn’t let me have it, so I flipped it around and came up with Ocean Billy. I reckon it’s still got a ring to it and now he’s an Auckland Cup winner – who’s going to argue with that!”