After three wins on trot since arriving in Australia, Not Usual Glorious will not only carry the heaviest weight of his racing career this weekend, but the weight of expectation from the ‘Free Money Saturdays’ syndicate.
Made up by current and former Port Adelaide Power players Tom Rockliff, John Butcher, Ollie Wines, Darcy Byrne Jones and Tom Clurey, Free Money Saturdays is hoping this horse is the one which finally lifts them from the ownership feed bin.
“We’d be coming up four years that we’ve been in, and we haven’t had much luck,” Rockliff said.
“We’ve had three which didn’t make the track and two which ran and were a lot slower than other slow horses, but this weekend we have the potential to have four running, which is a nice change.”
In the end, they have just one guaranteed runner, Not Usual Glorious in a 2100-metre handicap at Gawler, the final race on the program.
No Strings for Gordon Richards is an emergency in Race 8 at Gawler, while the syndicate’s other hopes, unraced pair Jucconi for Team McEvoy and Artful Flyer, didn’t accept.
The latter, like Not Usual Glorious, is also with the Travis Doudle stable but isn’t carrying the same expectations as its stablemate.
“This one (Not Usual Glorious) is the one which hopefully turns the syndicate around,” Rockliff explained.
“I didn’t get in on it at the start but after its first win the boys let me back in; I was pretty lucky.
“We’d been led down the garden path a few times and not had as much luck as we wanted and I said, ‘I can’t get in anymore’ and then it won, so I asked to come back in and they let me.
“I did have to pay a fee to get back in though, above and beyond, which is fine, but hopefully this is the one.”
The syndicate started as many do; with a profitable few days on the punt, however, now wannabe leviathan owners, things are a little more serious.
“We all have our own separate roles in the group,” Rockliff went on to explain.
“Butch is the dictator/president, Ollie and Darcy do all the scouting for the horses and go to the sales and then Tom Clurey is the liaison at the races with the jockeys and trainers.
“I just float in the middle of everything and stir them up.”
*At the conclusion of the interview for this story, it was determined that Rockliff was now the syndicate’s Media Liaison Officer.
