THE memorial service for Dan Costello held on Sunday afternoon at the Albion Park Harness Racing Club was a wonderful tribute to a very worthy recipient.
Australia’s top harness racing journalist, Adam Hamilton, was tasked with reading Dan’s eulogy, following extensive input from Dan’s wife Gitana and other family members, and it must be said that Adam did a terrific job relaying the highs and lows of Dan’s 67 years, not only to attendees at Albion Park, but to those watching the memorial service via the live stream.
A large cross-section of primarily harness racing trainers, drivers and owners attended Albion Park to farewell the highly respected and much-loved racing photographer and journalist. The Albion Park service unfortunately clashed with the Racing Queensland Thoroughbred Awards at The Star in Brisbane, which obviously detracted from the numbers of thoroughbred attendees at the service, however the MC of the Thoroughbred Awards, Pat Welsh, kindly made mention of Dan’s passing – and the associated memorial service – at the thoroughbred function. Nevertheless, Racing Queensland was still well represented at the Albion Park memorial service by their Harness Racing Chairperson, Jodie Jones, as well as Deputy Chief Steward for Queensland (thoroughbreds) – Geoff Goold.
Grant Peters, the sole owner – for the last decade – of his Trackside Photography business was also in attendance. Trackside Photography is the official photographer of nine thoroughbred racetracks in South-East Queensland, plus 14 thoroughbred racetracks in New South Wales. It is taken as read that Grant and Dan, who lived not far from each other, had a long-term association and shared many common interests along the way.
Fifty-five-year-old interstate harness racing trainer, Gail Geeson, who was given only a “10% chance” of surviving bowel cancer in 2020, but who is thankfully still in our midst six years later, made the 270-kilometre round trip from Pottsville in New South Wales to attend Dan’s service. No doubt the duo shared plenty of stories on their respective cancer health battles in recent years.
From an age demographic perspective, attendees at the memorial service ranged from two infants, whose respective parents Dan had photographed when they were children competing in the junior harness ranks 15 or more years ago, to the stage whereby they are now respected and successful senior drivers and parents themselves, to multiple people aged in their 80s, which bore testament to the high regard that Dan and Gitana’s official on-course photography business at both Redcliffe and Albion Park harness tracks is held in, among harness industry participants.
At the close of Adam Hamilton’s delivery of the eulogy, harness driver Angus Garrard addressed the crowd, paying tribute to Dan on behalf of all the facets of the harness racing industry.
At the end of the service, all attendees were the recipients of refreshments provided by Albion Park CEO, Jim Waddell, and his professional group of staff, which was very well received. On behalf of Gitana and her family, along with everyone else who attended Albion Park on Sunday, a sincere thanks to Jim and his staff on a job well done – on what was a sad day for all.
In other breaking news, I can advise that due to the huge response I’ve had from people wanting to buy Dan’s magnificent award-winning harness photo, which he took on the grass track at Kilcoy, the talented three-code race caller, Anthony Collins, who also has a long-standing association with the Darling Downs Harness Racing Club, has kindly offered to raffle the photo to the racing industry and the general public in due course. Whilst final details of the raffle are yet to be determined, Anthony’s original thoughts are that there will be either 200 or 250 tickets sold in the raffle at $5 a ticket, with 100% of proceeds of the sale obviously going to Dan’s wife Gitana.
The live stream of the memorial service for Dan Costello, can be heard on the thread below, along with vision of the accompanying huge montage of photos of Dan’s 67 years. The photos were sourced by his widow Gitana, and their charming daughter – Suzanna. There are a couple of songs which give an introduction to the memorial service, prior to Adam Hamilton starting his presentation at the eight-minute 22-second mark.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1421260209882465
