Have you been to Hell and back?In my life? Yes, definitely.It is an awfully awkward question to ask someone under the circumstances, but racehorse trainer David Vandyke answers it calmly and with consideration but still forthright and without hesitation.Few would shun the spoils of success, but when

Have you been to Hell and back?In my life? Yes, definitely.It is an awfully awkward question to ask someone under the circumstances, but racehorse trainer David Vandyke answers it calmly and with consideration but still forthright and without hesitation.Few would shun the spoils of success, but when those rewards lead to ruin and push through to a very different, desperately unhappy place it becomes a totally different situation.There was a significant time when heroin and alcohol, to name just a couple of things, paled well beyond an avenue of escapism for a man who now marks a decade of very welcome sobriety.Vandyke will saddle-up Yankee Rose in the $3 million Cox Plate over 2040 metres at Moonee Valley on Saturday. The three-year-old filly is the fourth favourite for the most coveted trophy in Australian racing outside the Melbourne Cup, at $15 with UBET, but she faces off against the two current superstars of racing: Winx is shooting for her 13th successive win, and her second successive Cox Plate victory, while Hartnell has burst onto the Group 1-winning scene with his form including a slashing last-start success over subsequent Caulfield Cup-winning mare Jameka in the Turnbull Stakes (2000m).The pre-Cox Plate Tuesday morning tradition of Breakfast with the Stars at the track sees the tomato sauce-topped snags sizzling, the coffee machines pumping, and the galloping headliners top off some of their final preparations for the weekend events. Topline trainers, Group 1-winning jockeys, and punters keen for that extra edge in the selections stakes -- not to mention the free breakfast -- arrive for the 6:30am kick-off well before the sun makes its appearance.All the big names are there. Winx has all eyes focused her way as she reacquaints herself with the circuit where she came to everyones attention a year earlier. The unofficial First Lady of Racing, Gai Waterhouse, in headscarf and raincoat, is well familiar with the unkind weather these early trackwork mornings can spring up, as drizzling rain provides an inconvenience only matched by the sound of the bedside alarm.So it is while Winx and Hartnell do their thing that that David Vandyke does his own.Going into her last start in the Spring Champion Stakes (2000m), which was a Group 1, there was a lot of pressure, Vandyke tells ESPN of Yankee Rose. She was the favourite and it was hard work, but going into this race, even though it is the weight-for-age championship of Australasia, Im enjoying it. The pressure is off; were the underdog.Were up against a couple of superstars and were not expected to win. She is in great shape and Im confident shell go out there and give of it her best. Were coming off the back of a Group 1 win so its just great to be here in this race.Great it is that Vandyke, who once trained out of the Kembla Grange racing centre and then at Warwick Farm in Sydney, is here, too. Take what he told Fairfax Media earlier this year: One day, I put a needle in my arm -- heroin -- and there was nothing left inside of me. I just said to God, Help. Thats all I could do. I felt worthless. No human force could save me from that point.Add to that his time spent sleeping in cars around Sydneys King Cross when it was really the kind of place that carried its more well-known seedier reputation, shooting up in secluded mountain hideaways, drug and other group-after-group of recovery session, and he was in an awful place.There were parts of my life that I didnt think Id be getting up, Vandyke tells ESPN of both the prospects of getting out of bed each morning and of whether he saw any positives in pushing on with his life at all.I thought my time on this planet was limited. To be sober is what I perceive as a miracle, but to be standing here with the third favourite in the Cox Plate and sober is something that I didnt think could ever happen.Though success came earlier in his career, Vandykes wasnt necessarily a flash-in-the-pan success. He grew up in a racing family environment and took up his first trainers licence in NSW. At the age of 21, he had already taken out the Kembla training premiership.The success got to him, as he has noted, and one hit after another of what became a hedonist lifestyle on many fronts was never enough. He is honest, now, about it all. Since the night when a trip to his secluded mountain spot saw a passer-by walking his dog force open the car door and remove the hose that was fastened to the car exhaust pipe, his life changed. Again. Literally.There was the realisation that, perhaps, there was reason to continue and that, after that, a second positive chance was there for him to grab. Everyone has his or her way of reasoning and coming to terms with what lies ahead. For David Vandyke, it was the combination of communication and faith.No doubt my recovery group and my faith in a higher power [has helped him], Vandyke says. I always had that faith but it was a blurred view of that higher power. I didnt connect with it like I do now. Its a daily reprieve from my addictions. Its a daily renewal. Thats how I live at the moment -- one day at time.Vandykes attitude now is a world away from his darker days. He regained his training licence in 2010 in Sydney, after spending time working for other trainers, including Winxs handler, Chris Waller, and swapped the hustle and bustle of what can be a hectic racing environment for the Sunshine Coast, an hour north of Brisbane. It has become not just a place to live and work, but one that allows him the space and time to collect and filter his thoughts.It was the best move that I ever made as far as relocating goes, he says.It suits me. Its a place where people go to bed early, its an older community, and theres a community feeling to the place. Its a bit slower than Sydney, and its nice to be living somewhere now I dont believe Ill be moving from.The second-most unsettling question was met with another direct, yet calming, reaction.Is an addict always an addict?Definitely. Ill never not be an addict. Im a recovering addict and Im gaining progressive victories over my illness. Its a relief to accept that. It keeps me safe because I know as a recovering addict that theres certain things that I cant do, theres certain places I cant go. Its helped me to live in the manner best suited to me. Im very healthy now. I exercise, I go to bed early, its given me back a life that I never had.Yankee Rose has the ability to provide another significant twist in the David Vandyke story. The Moonee Valley Racing Club is keen to market the Winx vs. Hartnell clash as the race of this century -- a throwback to the epic drive to the line by Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star in the same race 30 years earlier.However, should Yankee Rose, the runner-up in the 2016 Golden Slipper for two-year-olds salute then upset of this century may be the line for which many will scramble.Three-year-olds have a great record in recent times, Vandyke says.It is a vintage year, though, theres no denying that. Winx and Hartnell ... Wow! I think her age wont stop her; just the fact that shes up against a couple of champions could.(Although younger horses taking on this race have measured up well over the past two decades, a three-year-old filly has only been successful once when the star Surround trounced her rivals in 1976.)The 2016 Cox Plate is important also for Dean Yendall, who takes the ride after the 42-year-old journeyman Victorian jockey notched his first Group 1 win aboard Yankee Rose in the Spring Champion Stakes.Yendall will ride just about anywhere, any day, fortunate that he can eat as normally as any jockey can and still maintain his very light condition. Given the weight-for-age conditions of the Cox Plate, a three-year-old filly such as Yankee Rose has to carry only a featherweight impost.I was looking for someone who could ride her in the Cox Plate at 47.5kg, Vandyke says of the decision to engage Yendall. He fitted the description. When we went into the Spring Champion Stakes, Blake Shinn was suspended so we thought we might as well get Dean up to ride her in that race so he gets a feel for her.Winx might be the main act and defending champion on Saturday, and Hartnell the challenger, but Yankee Rose is showing shes a horse on the up. Either way, she has plenty of racing time ahead of her. So does her trainer.Questions like where do you think youll be in 10 years time? can sometimes be quite lame and fraught with hypotheticals. For Vandyke, though, there is every reason to look forward to the positive and his answer, in just a few words, is illuminating.Hopefully Ill be back here at the Cox Plate. Hopefully Ill be doing just what Im doing now.Lifeline is a national charity providing all Australians experiencing a personal crisis with access to 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services through their helpline - 13 11 14. Frank Gore Super Bowl Jersey . 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