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STORY OF ROUGHIE (ROUGH HABIT)






By ROUGHCAST out of CERTAIN HABIT (by ASHABIT), the bay gelding with a distinctive white blaze trailing over his near-side nostril was trained by John Wheeler and had nine campaigns in Australia, from three to eight years of age. Luckily his trainer saw past his looks as he stood at only 15.2 hands high, and was a smallish lightly framed gelding who couldn't even trot! However he could gallop, with the ability to either grind down his opposition or sprint boldly past them as he did in his 1992 Stradbroke Handicap. He was the second horse ever to win the Stradbroke and Doomben Cup in the same year, did it again the following year and completed the third attempt with another win in the Doomben to make it three in a row! In doing so he became King of the Queensland turf, even having a bar in Brisbane, Australia named after him.
He won Group 1 races in Sydney and Melbourne and won six of his eleven Group 1 races at the Brisbane winter carnivals where his wins included the Queensland Derby, two Stradbroke Handicaps and a record three Doomben Cups. ROUGH HABIT also contested the 1991 Japan Cup where he finished a very credible 5th.
ROUGH HABIT won 21 feature races from 1,400 to 2,400 meters on wet tracks and dry, and was narrowly beaten by fellow New Zealander SOLVIT in the 1994 Cox Plate. Later in the season, ROUGH HABIT won the O'Shea Stakes in Brisbane in his final start in Australia. Overall, ROUGH HABIT won eleven Group 1 races, ten of which he claimed in Australia.
Compassionately known as, "ROUGHIE", he became a Kiwi war horse. Amassing over $5 million in stakes money and exciting all of Australasia in doing what he knew best...beating the Aussies on their home turf.
In retirement, ROUGH HABIT was one of a handful of New Zealand gallopers to appear in a set of stamps issued by the New Zealand Post in 1996 with fellow champion thoroughbreds KIWI, BONECRUSHER and HORLICKS; and the harness racing champions BLOSSOM LADY and VICOLO II.
(70 Minutes)
Listing Info: | |
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Listing ID: | 263 |
Format(s) Available: | DVD And VHS |
Category: | Australian & New Zealand Flat Racing |