TOMMY’S PASSION
NRL GREAT’S TRACK INSPIRATION
RUGBY league legend Tommy Raudonikis will stand trackside today at the Gold Coast Turf Club to cheer on the horse who has helped put him on the path to beating cancer for a fourth time.
Raudonikis is a partowner of the Toby and Trent Edmonds-trained Sunday Session, who will run in the Bench Mark 65 Handicap (1800m) at Aquis Park today.
The 69-year-old Raudonikis, who was last month inducted into the NSWRL Hall of Fame, has been having experimental treatment at Southport’s Tasman Health Centre on an inoperable cancer wrapped around his carotid artery.
The Paradise Point resident is the only one in Australia trialing the treatment and just one of three in the world.
As for Sunday Session, Raudonikis’s good friend and businessman John Singleton gave him a share in the horse late last year and sent it from NSW to Queensland so he could watch it race.
The five-year-old gelding – a full brother to former champion mare More Joyous – has become a beacon of inspiration for the man who represented NSW 24 times and Australian 20 times before coaching the Blues in 1997 and 1998.
Simply, the horse gives him reason to leave his house and get moving.
“It’s been a great interest of mine,” Raudonikis said of his journey with Summer Session.
“I’ve been getting treatment every week so it’s good to get my mind off it and go to the races to watch it run around.
“Toby is a great trainer and John Singleton has been a good friend of mine for a long time, since my days at Newtown Jets.”
Raudonikis said his cancer had become inactive and he would reduce his treatment to every three weeks in September. Toby Edmonds said it had been his pleasure to watch the impact the horse has had on Raudonikis.
“It’s been great because you can see how much Tommy has improved,” Edmonds said.
“The horse is only average – he is no star. But it’s been good to see that what Singo has done for him is working.
“It’s getting him out of the house and interested in something else.
“Every time I see him I can see how much he has improved.”