Racing: 'Steel Balls' is back and hot to trot

By MICHAEL GUERIN

There were days when winning anything less than $10,000 bored Graham Bruton.

But now the man whose betting exploits earned him the name Steel Balls is reformed. Sort of.

Bruton is back betting after swearing off gambling two years ago when a string of huge losses left him with little but a silly nickname.

After winning hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling on rugby and league he lost all of it, including the fortune won by his champion racehorse Lyell Creek.

The horse manure hit the fan when Bruton placed a $20,000 bet on a one-day cricket game at a friend's pub TAB agency, lost and couldn't pay up. He made headlines, briefly skipped the country but returned to start all over again.

Thanks to the equine cashflow machine that is Lyell Creek and his own discipline, Bruton has fought back financially.

"These days I can get a buzz out of winning $200 on a game of league," he said. "In the old days if the result wasn't worth $10,000 to me I didn't care less."

Bruton admits he will be betting on Lyell Creek when New Zealand's greatest-ever trotter starts favourite in tonight's $100,000 Rowe Cup at Alexandra Park.

"I think he will win and I'll be having something on him, but nothing like the old days."

The veteran trotter left New Zealand three years ago and was never expected to race here again.

Victory in tonight's group one race would be akin to Zinzan Brooke returning to play rugby in New Zealand and making the All Blacks again.

Regardless of Lyell Creek's performance, tonight's meeting will be historic as it features the last race of New Zealand's richest-ever pacer, Holmes D G, who has been Alexandra Park's favourite son for five years.

But he is 100-1 to win his swansong as he races new sensation Elsu.

Still, as Bruton can attest to, anything can happen in racing.