Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has become the latest English soccer player to take up a direct involvement in racing by buying a horse set to go into training with Tom Dascombe.

Dascombe's yard in Cheshire, northwest England, has been backed financially by Rooney's United team-mate and fellow England forward Michael Owen, whose Brown Panther was the stable's star during this year's English flat season, with the colt winning at Royal Ascot.

"I can confirm that Wayne and Coleen (Rooney's wife) have bought a horse," a spokesman for Dascombe said on Monday.