Almanac Teams: Winning Melbourne Cup jockeys and their footy counterparts
It’s a while since I’ve done a novelty team. Well, what better time than the present?
We’ve recently had the race that stops the nation, so I thought about a team using the surnames of Melbourne Cup winning jockeys, linking them with their footballing equivalents. How’s this team look? They’d be odds on to beat their opponents.
The footballers are the first named, the jockeys who share the surnames are next up in brackets.
B: Andy Preston (Teddy) Bruce Morrison (J) Russell Cook (Peter)
HB: Kevin Higgins (Roy) Alex Duncan ( Bill) Martin Pike (James)
C: Patrick Cripps (Herbert) Greg Williams (Craig) Clayton Oliver (Damien)
HF: Brad Johnson (Jim) Brown Jonathan (Corey) Bob Davis (S)
F: Donald McDonald (James) Lindsay White (Harry) Henry Coles (Les)
Foll: Ben McEvoy (Kerrin) Denis Marshall (John) Touk Miller (John)
Inter: Jeff Cassidy (Jimmy) Joe Sellwood (Neville) Phil Munro (Darby) Jim Shanahan (Albert)
Emergencies: George Gough (Jim) John Robson (G) Nathan Foley (Fred)
Coach/Trainer: Norm Smith (TJ)
Years these jockeys won the Melbourne Cup.
Corey Brown : 2009, 2017 It would be remiss not mentioning that T Brown won the Cup in 1878
Jimmy Cassidy: 1983, 1997
Les Coles: 1962
Peter Cook: 1981, 1984 Billy Cook won it in 1941, then 1945.
Herbert Cripps: 1893
S Davis: 1864. W Davis then won in 1866.
Bill Duncan: 1918, 1932
Jim Gough: 1881
Fred Foley: 1916
Roy Higgins: 1965,1967
Jim Johnson: 1963, 1968, 1969
John Marshall: 1999
James McDonald: 2021
Kerrin McEvoy: 2000, 2016, 2018
John Miller: 1966
J Morrison : 1869
Darby Munro: 1934, 1944, 1946. Just for good measures his brother James L Munro ride the winner in 1925, also 1928.
Damien Oliver: 1995, 2002, 2013
James Pike: 1930
Teddy Preston: 1939
G Robson: 1892
Neville Sellwood: 1951, 1955
Albert Shanahan: 1913, 1914
Harry White: 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979
Craig Williams: 2019
T J Smith twice trained winners of the Melbourne Cup, firstly in 1955, later on in 1981.
You’d have to say this team is a good bet. So to paraphrase, the old adage : I’m not encouraging you to gamble, I’m encouraging you to bet.
Glen!
Read more from Glen! HERE
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About Glen d
Great work Glen
Maybe have a side next of horses named after footballers or a cup field.
I know Cups Day Race 1 had Brereton & Quinlan
Dermott also had Big Dermott
Minson was a good horse
Deledio ran in a VRC Derby
Others I can recall are
Big Buddie
Bontempelli
Ramanauskas
Van Der Haar
Lethal Leigh
King Carey
As today is Melbourne Cup Day, this article got me thinking of doing a corresponding Melbourne Cup Trainers and their footy counterpart teams.
However, I decided to instead do a team of racehorses, the majority named after footballers, as per Rodney’s comment. I decided to also include footballers with racehorse/horse terms such as trot, gallop, bets and gamble, as emergencies only, to make up the numbers.
Some players were played out of position, so they could fit in the team. The team was named more around the quality of the players, as well as team balance, rather than the racehorses themselves.
The names of the racehorses are in brackets.
This is the VFL/AFL Team of Racehorses with Footballer’s Names:
B: Andrew Bews (Bews), Stephen Silvagni (Silvagni), Fred Swift (Swift)
HB: Bruce Doull (Doull), Ted Whitten (c) (Whitten), Scott Pendlebury (Pendlebury)
C: Christian Petracca (Petracca), Nat Fyfe (Nat The Fyfe), Adam Ramanauskas (Ramanauskas)
HF: Cyril Rioli (Magic Rioli), Wayne Carey (King Carey), Lance Franklin (Big Buddie)
F: Trent Cotchin (The Cotch), Gary Ablett Sr. (Geecheegazza), Bernie Quinlan (Quinlan)
R: Will Minson (Minson), Marcus Bontompelli (Bontempelli), Leigh Matthews (Lethal Leigh)
Interchange: Dermott Brereton (Brereton), Brett Deledio (Deledio), Ryan Griffen (Burly Griffen), Jake Melksham (Lady Melksham), Brendan Fevola (Fab Fevola)
Emergencies: Paul Van Der Haar (Van Der Haar), Eddie Betts (bets), Stuart Trott (trot), Ty Gallop (gallop), Mark Gamble (gamble)
Captain-Coach: Ted Whitten (Whitten)
This team will play a pretend exhibition match against the Winning Melbourne Cup jockeys and their footy counterparts team, named by Glen, at the start of this article.
Venue: Racecourse Ground, Wrexham, Wales
Entertainment: The songs “That Tuesday in November”, by Mike Brady and “The Horses”, by Daryl Braithwaite
Let’s hope for a good game of football where you will back the winner! As this team is much stronger on paper than Glen’s team, you could say that the VFL/AFL Team of Racehorses with Footballer’s Names is the hot favourite!
Since this article’s been written, Jamie Melham, the winning jockey on Half Yours (Half Her Luck) in Today’s 2025 Melbourne Cup, got me thinking that Jake MELksHAM, has Melham written in his surname.
Regarding the 2024 Melbourne Cup winning jockey, Robbie Dolan, there’s the current Western Bulldogs player, Josh Dolan, who has played 11 games and has kicked 1 goal in 2025.
Mark Zahra, the Melbourne Cup winning jockey in 2022 and 2023, has his surname written somewhere in David ZAHaRAkis. (Half His Surname)