Allison’s dream day in Cup winner’s circle

JUST 24 hours after watching her brother’s horse Shocking win the Melbourne Cup, Allison Mortimer was back in Ipswich wondering if it was all a dream.

Two things told her it wasn’t. The replays she has repeatedly watched and the fact she had not yet been to sleep.

“I said to my brother-in-law: ‘we’re back in Queensland’,” Mrs Mortimer said.

“Yesterday we were at the Melbourne Cup.

“It’s very surreal.”

Mrs Mortimer’s younger brother is Laurence Eales, the man who bought Shocking for $64,000 and yesterday collected a winner’s cheque for $3.3 million.

“I jumped on him when he won,” Mrs Mortimer said.

“He was just screaming with his hands in the air.”

A former Norths A grade and Ipswich representative hockey player, Mrs Mortimer was not originally going to the Melbourne Cup, having made the trip down when another of Eales’ horses, Whobegotyou, disappointed by running sixth in the Cox Plate.

But Eales insisted they all be there for the Cup, flying down Mrs Mortimer, her parents from Cairns, brother from Sydney and sister and brother-in-law from Brisbane.

“I thought, ‘We’ll come. It may never happen again – he’s got a horse in the Cup’,” Mrs Mortimer said. “We were down at the fence.

“We could see (Shocking’s) head the whole way coming and coming. Then we were too busy screaming we didn’t see the race (finish).

“We went back to the bar and watched the replays.”

Mr Eales is the youngest of the four siblings and described by Mrs Mortimer as “the most special”.

“If you asked me 10 years ago would my brother be a millionaire business I’d have said no,” she said.

“If you had said he would own two millionaire horses I would have laughed in your face.”

By the time she got back into Queensland yesterday afternoon Mrs Mortimer and her husband Glen had still not slept.

“We left the Casino at 3.30am to get back to Sunbury,” she said.

“We had to be up at 6.30am.

“It was a great night.”