West Coast Eagles legend Ben Cousins and champion jockey Damian Oliver to hit Albany for Legends Gala event

Great Southern sports fans will get to see WA racing and AFL royalty when legendary jockey Damian Oliver and West Coast Eagles premiership hero and Brownlow medallist Ben Cousins visit Albany next month. Albany Racing Club and Roy Rogers Racing have joined forces to host a legends gala night at Retravision Stadium on Friday, January 3 with Cousins and Oliver as guest speakers. Oliver, who is a three-time Melbourne Cup-winning jockey and rode a record 129 Group 1 winners, will be a special guest of the Albany Racing Club for its annual celebration of jockeys for Fitzpatrick Plate day on January 5. The celebration of jockeys will pay homage to past and present hoops including the late Frank Treen, whose mother Lucy was part of Albany’s Fitzpatrick family in which the feature race is named after. Cousins displays just a few photographs from his rollercoaster football journey and one of those is he and Oliver celebrating the Eagles 2006 premiership win. Cousins described Oliver’s support of West Coast as “enormous”. “We go a long way back – he was such a staunch supporter,” Cousins told the Albany Advertiser. “I don’t have a lot of pictures up from my footy days, but I do have a collage of four or five from grand final day and he’s in one of them in the rooms after the game. “To watch, mostly from afar, the way he handled his career through adversity . . . some of the things he’s been able to do, I think it puts him in very rare company in terms of a sportsman from WA or in Australia. “Particularly now 12 months post retirement, it’s still in part tipping the hat to him and giving him the right send-off. To hear some of his stories, when the opportunity came along to go down to Albany with him I jumped at it.” The pair will join each other on stage for live interviews detailing their storied careers in their chosen sports and their links to not only the region but between football and racing. The cocktail-style evening starts at 5pm for VIP guests before general admission doors open at 5.30pm for a 6pm show start. Tickets are available at Megatix, starting at $279 which includes a premium drinks package and premium cocktail platters.