Racing: Logjammed Lyell Creek misses cut for elite feature

By MICHAEL GUERIN

STOCKHOLM - Tim Butt leaned up against a stable wall in the blinding Swedish sunlight and let out a huge sigh.

"That was like getting into a fight with your hands tied behind your back," said the Canterbury trainer.

The young gun horseman had just watched in disbelief as his champion Lyell Creek was denied any chance of qualifying for the $1million Elitlopp Final by a shocking trip in his heat.

Butt's brother Anthony had been forced to pull Lyell Creek back to last from the worst draw in the first heat of the world's greatest trotting race after several of his rivals made flying starts.

But that wasn't so bad as Butt knew all he had to do was wait for the perfect drag into the race behind second favourite Etain Royal.

He is still waiting.

With favourite Victory Tilly purring along in front Butt waited and waited for Etain Royal to launch his customary mid-race challenge that would have given Lyell Creek the perfect chance to run in the first four, earning his ticket into the final.

But Etain Royal produced his worst run for a year and Lyell Creek was the victim.

Etain Royal struggl ed to get warm and Butt was stuck behind him. To pull four wide in the wide Swedish sulkies would have meant covering extra ground, which would have been useless as the leaders cut out stunning sectionals.

And when Butt attempted to drop down to the inside at the 500m point another struggling rival closed the gap. Everywhere he went the ineptitude of others suffocated the Kiwi champ.

At the 400m Lyell Creek was cruising but had a wall of horses in front of him and the leaders were getting further in front.

Butt finally managed to secure a clear passage at the 200m mark but by then the leaders were 10 lengths in front with their momentum up.

Lyell Creek unleashed a scintillating burst, trotting the fastest last 400m of his career, but it was simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as he missed the final by one position.

"I can't believe that," said Anthony Butt.

"Everybody here told us Etain Royal would be off as soon as he could attacking and I was quite happy to be on his back because I thought we were going to get a nice drag into the race.

"But he [Etain Royal] went a shocker and there was nothing I could do but sit there and cop it. It was the most frustrating drive of my career."

The heat was won by Italian outsider Solar Effe but it was his compatriot Varenne who really set the wave of red, green and white flags flying.

While Solar Effe trotted a brillaint 1:54 for the mile, which is 1.6 seconds inside the New Zealand record, Varenne made that look pedestrian in the second heat.

He came from the outside barrier to trot 1:53.6, just 0.1 of a second outside the world record in performance that earned him $1.50 favouritism for the final two hours later.

And he justified that with an equally breathtaking win in the $1million feature.

Beaten for early speed by Victory Tilly, Varenne sat parked down the back straight as the two leaders waged a war before surging clear.

The six-year-old bolted in with a performance that confirmed his reputation as the best in the world and sent the Italian fans into a frenzy, which admittedly isn't a very hard thing to do.

And all the Butt brothers could do was watch. And wish.

"We have to be realistic, there is no way we would have beaten Varenne even if we had made the final because he was awesome," said Tim Butt.

"What really gets me is to come this far and not get our chance.

"You can plan to ovecome so many things when you travel a horse to the other side of the world but there is nothing you can do about bad luck in the running.

"I just wish it had come on another day because I know he is good enough to run with these horses."

Lyell Creek will now head to the $360,000 Copenhagen Cup on June 10 where he will meet slightly weaker opposition and will be better suited by the 2011m distance.

"The extra distance will help because the one thing these trotters over here have got on us is their gate speed.

"Lyell is flat keeping up for the first half of the race but as you saw he was finishing better than any of them."

After the Copenhagen Cup Lyell Creek will head to the United States.

"We will march on as planned because what other choice do we have. We can't just pack up and go home because things didn't go our way.

"It wasn't the first time we have been unlucky out of the track and it won't be the last."

But it would have been nice if it hadn't have been on the biggest stage in the trotting world.