Rough Habit, a bay gelding with a distinctive white blaze trailing over his near-side nostril, was foaled on 2 December 1986.
Rough Habit won 21 feature races[1] from 1,400 to 2,400 metres, on wet tracks and dry, and was narrowly beaten by fellow New Zealander Solvit in the 1994 Cox Plate.
Later in the season, Rough Habit won the O'Shea Stakes, in Brisbane, at his final start in Australia.
[3] In 2012, Rough Habit was inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame at a special awards ceremony in Auckland.
[4] The Brisbane Racing Club holds the Group 3 Rough Habit Plate for three-year-olds, which is run at set weights, and named in his honour.