Owner Rook’s journey goes Full circle
Tracey Rook once rode for sixtime Golden Slipper-winning trainer Tommy Smith, now she hopes to combine with his daughter Gai Waterhouse to secure the world’s richest two-year-old event.
Rook first set foot in Randwick’s famous Tulloch Lodge as a 16-year-old in 1986 after answering an advertisement looking for riders.
She wound up working as a trackwork rider and served as an apprentice for Smith towards the end of the trainer’s legendary career.
Rook’s career trajectory took her in a different direction, but more than three decades later, she’s found herself back at the stable this week.
Rook is now the founder and chief executive of Redfox Racing and was back at Tulloch Lodge to watch her fledgling syndicator’s star Fully Lit, one of Waterhouse and co-trainer Adrian Bott’s knockout chances to win this year’s Golden Slipper.
“It’s quite amazing,” Rook said.
“It was raining during trackwork so I went over to Tulloch Lodge to get changed before the barrier draw and I walked in there dripping wet but saw the young staff leading the horses around. “Watching them it was quite a surreal moment to think it was that long ago I was there and now I was getting ready to draw a number for a horse in the Golden Slipper.
“Walking into that trophy room was quite amazing.”
A career as a jockey didn’t pan out for Rook, but she has stayed involved in racing for most of her life through breeding and ownership.
That involvement ramped up when she started Redfox Racing 16 months ago.
“During Covid, I reassessed what I would like to do and that’s when it started to take off,” Rook said.
“I thought this is what I was really passionate about when I was younger and now I think Covid gave everybody a chance to get off the hamster wheel and assess where you’re at so we took off with that.”
Fully Lit is Redfox Racing’s biggest success story to date.
He was bought as a $60,000 Inglis Classic Yearling. Fully Lit has proven himself to be a bargain buy after racing away with the $2m Inglis Millennium at his second start.