 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 1999
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Graham Bruton, Anthony & Tim Butt |
West Melton trainer Tim Butt captured the biggest victory of his career when Lyell Creek demolished the $100,000 Coupland's Bakeries Dominion Trotting Handicap field at Addington. The 31-year-old West Melton horseman has been a consistent achiever amongst the training ranks, notching 20-plus win totals in each of his last five seasons. And now he looks set to take centre stage in the cauldron of next year's Inter-Dominion Trotting Championship in Melbourne. Thanks to Lyell Creek.
Dubbed affectionately by Butt and his brother Anthony as 'Creek the freak', trotting's latest sensation really is one out of the blue. This time 12 months ago he had only just made his debut, finishing fifth in a maiden at Kaikoura, and he was bought by Graham Bruton after winning his next start on January 4. Lyell Creek won first-up for the Butts at Motukarara later the same month, then at Addington early in February he stood on the mark and took no part, eventually being pulled up. Two wins in the space of three days at Trentham followed, but after returning home Lyell Creek took ill. "He got this niggly little virus and was quite crook for a long while," Tim recalled. "The virus was resistant to a couple of types of antibiotics that we tried, and in the end we took a swab out of his lung to find out how to kill it."
Lyell Creek resumed in August, knocking his opposition aside like tenpins. He stretched his winning streak to five prior to the Banks Peninsula Trotting Cup, and treated that field with arrogance as well. If people were not starting to sit up and take notice by then, they certainly were after the geldings Cup Day run, because that was one of the greatest staying performances ever seen at Addington.
So Lyell Creek went into the Dominion with the picket fence formline intact, but on the score of experience he really had no right lining up in such an event. After all, it is the New Zealand Cup of trotting, a race for our most hardened and elite square-gaiters; with only 11 starts under his belt, Lyell Creek was a baby in an adult's world. No-one told him that. Beginning like only he does, Lyell Creek bounded away for his customary two strides and came down trotting. Anthony Butt held onto him until they were around the first bend, then he asked the 6-year-old to find the lead. That is where Lyell Creek loves it and it shows. Two laps later he was still there, and he embarrassed his more experienced rivals when jogging home by more than two lengths.
"We were not originally going to start him in the Dominion," his trainer said afterwards. "All along we were targetting the Inter-Dominions because of the stakemoney, and we felt that his best chance in them was to be off the front. But going by his run on Cup Day and tonight's performance, he's probably good enough to win it off 20 metres," Butt said.
Lyell Creek now heads to Auckland for the two major trotting events on their carnival, and then it's off to Melbourne. Butt is extremely excited about the trotters prospects across the Tasman, and why wouldn't he be. "The handicaps for the Inter-Dominions come out on December 1, so regardless of what he does after that he can't be re-handicapped," he said. "In a lot of ways Lyell Creek is still learning to be a racehorse - he shakes and shivers in his stall before a race so he should be more settled once he gets over that. He is a perfect beginner though, and Ants hasn't turned the stick on him yet. The trips up north and overseas are going to do him the world of good."
Credit: John Robinson writing in NZHR Weekly