Now he'll be a part of connections in crack Goulburn sprinter Intuition for the day, a horse part-owned by Raiders captain Jarrod Croker.

"It was a promo for the $5 tickets and it tweaked my memory," Illes said.

Illes rang his daughter, Rebecca, and asked her to carry out the task.

"I have a building company and our office is in Turramurra and both my wife [Deidre] and daughter work in the business," Illes said.

"The office is only four doors up from the Turramurra TAB and Rebecca was still at work. I said, 'Why don't you go up and buy 20 tickets for me, 20 for you and 20 for mum'.

"Then on Wednesday, after the draw, I looked up the Racing NSW website and saw there was a slot winner at Turramurra, so I started getting excited. I pulled the tickets out to check and lo and behold we'd won a slot."

Illes' family is right into racing and once they knew they had a slot it was time do a deal with connections of a horse they believed could win the $1.3 million race for country-trained horses over 1200m at Randwick on October 17.

"My son has got a friend who knows [Intuition's trainer] Kurt Goldman and also [part-owner] Paul Joice and he got talking to him.

MORE CANBERRA SPORT

"We'd already looked at another runner and weren't able to do a deal, but we were able to do a deal with Kurt. He's the majority owner of the horse as well as the trainer and I put it to him that we'd be happy with the 40 per cent of the prizemoney, but could we get the trophy if the horse won.

"Kurt was fine with that and we were thrilled because with all the races we've won over the years we've never won anything where there's been a trophy, except for one race in Melbourne. We're tickled pink with that arrangement and if we happen to win we'll be over the moon."

Intuition will run in specially-designed Canberra Raiders silks, with a percentage of the prizemoney won to be donated to the Ricky Stuart Foundation promoting awareness and understanding of autism.