Recently retired Brisbane and Port Adelaide midfielder Tom Rockliff won’t have far to look for tip in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.
A keen racing fan and part-owner of three horses with Morphettville trainer Travis Doudle, Rockliff said he is being shown up by son Jack when it comes to finding a winner this spring.
“The young bloke is in better form than me,’’ Rockliff said.
“Jack, my wife Sharna and I have been picking one out in the big races. He’s picked the Caulfield Cup winner, the Cox Plate winner and both he and his mum picked Teewaters (in the Victoria Derby) that paid $5 the place, so he’s in better form than me,’’ he said.
Rockliff is looking forward to getting trackside at Morphettville on Cup Day along with members of his Free Money Saturdays syndicate, which includes past and present AFL teammates John Butcher, Darcy Byrne-Jones, Tom Clurey and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines, to cheer on one of their horses, Sacred Armour.
“It’s always exciting to have a runner in the city,’’ Rockliff said.
“His runs in New Zealand were sound and the way it won the other day was pretty soft in the end. Hopefully he can do that tomorrow and it will be onwards and upwards to better things,’’ he said.
The former Brisbane captain and dual best and fairest said he caught the racing bug in his early years at the track in country Victoria.
“As a young fella I would always go with the family to the country meets,’’ Rockliff said.
“Those country clubs are really important to the community, and it’s all really just progressed from there,’’ he said.
And he is with Peter Moody’s Incentivise in the race that stops the nation.
“Incentivise is hard to go past, the way it won the Caulfield Cup he looks hard to beat again,’’ Rockliff said.