Veterans Butterfield and Pat McCarten are still winning. Photo / Race Images
Racehorses competing into their double-digit years are common in jumping ranks but those in the mould of weekend winner Butterfield are by far the exception.
At Tauranga on Saturday, 10-year-old Butterfield belied his age when he outsprinted his rivals in the Rating 75 1400m, working to the lead from a wide gate for regular rider Tayla Mitchell to establish a clear lead and clinging to victory by a short half-head from Oppenheimer.
That took the Niagara gelding’s record from 52 starts to six wins, six seconds and five thirds for stakes a touch short of $230,000.
“He’s been such a genuine horse for me, he always tries so hard and he showed that again on Saturday when he fought them off like that,” said trainer and part-owner Pat McCarten, who races Butterfield with Hong Kong resident Edmund Yue.
“The thing is even though he’s 10, this season, he’s felt the best and looked the best he ever has.
“When you look at his record, he’s never raced so well, with the most stakes [$73,300] he’s ever earned in a season.”
McCarten is perfectly positioned to assess his solitary racehorse’s well-being, as not only does he train him, but despite his own advancing years, he also rides him in all his work.
“It just got harder and harder to depend on work riders, so that gets back to me, otherwise I’d have to give up. I mix his training between my own property at Oropi, which is quite hilly, and at the [Tauranga] track, so I guess you could say it works. I’m a bit of a one-man band, I do everything myself, even shoeing him.”
Going only so far as describing his own age in terms of “old enough to know better”, Taranaki-born and raised McCarten has a deep racing background.
Most famously, his great uncle is the late Maurice McCarten, a member of both the Australian and New Zealand Racing Halls of Fame recognising an outstanding career as a jockey and trainer.
Born in 1902 and initially a dual premiership-winning jockey in his homeland, McCarten took that success further after relocating to Sydney, with another premiership and wins in many of Australia’s major races.
When he transitioned to training, he prepared the winners of the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, multiple Cox Plates, Epsom Handicaps and Golden Slippers, including the inaugural edition of Australia’s premier 2-year-old race with the champion colt Todman.
He won the 1939 Sydney trainers’ premiership and finished second no less than 10 times to the trainer who was to dominate Sydney ranks, TJ Smith.
“I’m not old enough to remember his career but I do recall him from the times he would come home for visits,” says McCarten’s great nephew.
Pat McCarten’s own time in racing has included ownership with his parents of the quality 1980s galloper Passakiss. She was prepared by the late Dick Bothwell to win the Listed Wellesley Stakes (1000m) and two editions of the Listed Clifford Plate (2000m), the premier weight-for-age race at the original Christmas-New Year Auckland Cup carnival.
McCarten became a pioneer in the video filming of National Sale yearlings before they went to auction, as well as combining that content with his work as a bloodstock agent.
“I did my first yearling videos back in 1990 and I’m still involved in that kind of work,” McCarten said. “We have our own website [www.equivision.co.nz] which covers the whole equine range.”
As for Butterfield, McCarten has “thrown in a nom” for Pukekohe on Friday, keen to make the most of autumn tracks while they last.
“I was quite surprised he coped with that [heavy8] track on Saturday, I almost scratched him on the morning but I think it helped that Tayla got him across to the fence and stayed down on the inside.
“I’ll keep him going while he’s enjoying it, so I don’t know how long that will mean and whether he comes back next season.
“All I know is he hasn’t put his hand up at this stage.”
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