Frank’s cup runneth over

– David Nagel
CRANBOURNE’S Hank Frenken, 63, has had two weeks he won’t forget in a hurry.
First, his beloved Cranbourne Football Club broke a 16-year drought to win the Casey Cardinia Football League grand final and now he clinched his home town’s biggest race when Boom ‘n’ Zoom, of which he has a 25 per cent share, won the $200,000 TAB Sportsbet Cranbourne Cup.
That’s not bad for a bloke who didn’t know what a football looked like until he moved to Australia, from Germany, as a five-year-old and couldn’t distinguish one end of a horse from the other until a few years back.
“This is a beautiful thrill, better than winning the premiership,” a beaming Frenken said holding the cup in both hands.
“Colin Clements from Advanced Trusses got me involved in horses a few years back and it’s been great fun, this is just unbelievable, winning your home cup. I’ve got six horses now,” he said, laughing.
Frenken’s interest in the horse racing industry continues to grow; he’s now part of group that breeds horses with a mare out of Galileo, named Godstar and talks like a proud father about an impending birth.
“We’re expecting news any minute now about the fourth foal to be born, hopefully everything goes well,” he said.
Frenken’s association with the football club goes back 43 years. He says he’s done everything at the club except president, secretary and treasurer and has been a major sponsor of the club for as long as he cares to remember.
He admits he has stepped back his involvement over the last couple of years but was planning on visiting coach Doug Koop on Sunday night to compare trophies.
The Cranbourne Cup trophy looked in safe hands with Frenken but he agreed there could be some cold bubbly stuff filling it up over the next few days.
“There could be,” Frenken smiled. “But I don’t drink.”