Tauranga horseman Patrick McCarten enjoyed one of his more memorable days as a trainer when producing Butterfield to win on Auckland Cup Day at Ellerslie last Saturday.
The eight-year-old gelding ran seventh at the Auckland track seven days prior after placing in his two previous starts this year, and McCarten was hopeful of a better showing in the Tempur Classic 1200.
From his wide gate, Butterfield was fairly away and settled midfield for apprentice jockey Tayla Mitchell. The son of Niagara tracked Covermeinsunshine into the race and Mitchell presented her charge six-wide at the turn where he showed a good turn of foot in the final 200m to score a 1-1/4 length victory over Marengo, with a further 1-1/2 lengths back to race favourite My Annie Belle in third.
While things didn’t go to plan in the early stages of the race, McCarten was ecstatic with the outcome.
“The initial plan was to be positive from the start with the intentions of sitting handy. He missed the start fractionally, so we didn’t achieve that, and he was posted a little wide,” he said.
“Tayla rode a great race in getting him to settle and make her move on the home turn. It was very pleasing to see him go to the line so well. He seemed to win it quite convincingly.
“There may be time for another start before the winter, but he will have a few days off after racing both days at Ellerslie. We will see how he comes through the race. He will spell through the winter and we look forward to a spring preparation.
“He will step up to rating 75 in his next start. We will just see what is available when he is ready.”
McCarten has operated yearling video production company Equivision for the last three decades and in that time he struck up a good association with Butterfield’s Hong Kong-based part-owner Edmond Yue.
“I started Equivision in 1991 and was pretty much the first one to start filming at the yearling sales. Through that I made a few contacts and started to sell horses as well,” McCarten said.
“I had sold Edmond a couple of good horses, including High Five, who won five or six races in Hong Kong. He asked me to look for another horse for him, so I decided on Butterfield.”
McCarten purchased Butterfield off Darryn Weatherley as a juvenile and enjoyed following his career before taking over training the gelding in 2020, with Butterfield winning first-up for McCarten after a 12-month absence from racing.
“I bought him for Edmond quite a while back off the Weatherleys,” McCarten said. “I liked the look of him. He wasn’t a big horse, he was only 15.1 (hands) when I bought him as a two-year-old, but there was something about him.
“He was initially with Finbarr Leahy for a couple of years.”
McCarten is enjoying focussing more on training these days and is looking forward to adding to his stable numbers over the winter months.
“I have been concentrating on training a bit more lately,” he said. “I have got a couple of horses that I am going to bring in over the winter, so hopefully we can have a bit of fun with them next season.”
