BY ADAM HAMILTON
TOUGH and inspirational NRL legend, Jarrod Croker, admits he will get a bit emotional heading to Menangle on Saturday night.
Croker, 34, who played 307 games for the Canberra Raiders and was a long-time captain, part-owns leading Inter Dominion contender Captains Knock with a group of friends and family. The star pacer is trained and driven by his great mate, Brad Hewitt.
“I never really got emotional through my footy career, maybe in a few of the losses which hurt and in my 300th game when my kids were there, but I have got emotional a couple of times when ‘Joey’ (Captain Knock’s stable name) races,” Croker admitted.
“He’s won the Breeders Challenge finals as a two, three and four-year-old. The only one of them I’ve been able to get to was the three-year-old final and I can assure I was emotional that night.
“Just heading to Menangle in a bus all the special people involved with Joey will be special enough this week, knowing he’s made the final of such a prestigious race as the Inter Dominion and is a real chance in it, too, with some luck.
“I don’t know how I’ll be if he does win it.”
Croker grew up in Goulburn with Hewitt and Josh Stapleton, who formed the “Triple Play Syndicate” which paid just $36,000 for Captains Knock as a yearling. He’s won 18 races, earned $530,976 and is still a relative baby at just four years of age.
“The first horse I got into the boys was Im Jay Tee in 2014. He won six of his first seven starts for us and I thought ‘how easy is this’,” Croker said.
The bar was raised and the idea for the syndicate spawned when the friends bought a pint-sized pacer called Our Triple Play from NZ. He went on to win 17 races, including a string of country cups and a Group 3 race in Brisbane, on his way to earning $276,868.
“Little ‘Harry’ we called him. He was a little ripper, really loved the small tracks that’s where this syndicate came from that we’re now all in,” Croker said.
“There’s Brad (Hewitt), Josh (Stapleton), Sammy Williams (another former Raiders player) and the others are friends, family, fathers-in-law, a real Goulburn.
“All credit to Brad, his Dad (David) and Mum (Maree) … we’ve had incredible success and never had to tip-in (money). The horses have paid for themselves and then some, since we started the syndicate.”
Captains Knock, who won two of his three Inter Dominion qualifying heats and ran a luckless third in the other, is a $5.50 chance from an awkward inside back row barrier draw in Saturday night’s $500,000 final at Menangle.
“We’ve had lots of luck, but just not with barrier draws in the big races so far, like the TAB Eureka, Rising Sun and now this week, but he’s never gone better and has the right man driving to find some gaps when he needs it,” Croker said.
Croker retired at the end of the 2023 season and is enjoying having more time with his young family and his horses, including trips from Canberra back to Hewitt’s stables in Goulburn.
“I’m still heavily involved at the club and there most days, helping with skills and kicking coaching, so I don’t get back as often as I’d like, but my oldest boy, Rory, loves the horses and stables and I do, too,” he said.
“I’ve really got the bug and I’m even helping out Harness Racing NSW promote the game, that I know from my own experience how much fun it can be, especially when you share it with other people.”
