By Mike Love
Leeston trainer Kim Butt and Grettymac gave her barely one week old new owners an instant thrill by winning the Barb and Kev Chapman Racing Mobile Trot at Friday’s Rangiora meeting.
“I wasn’t really expecting that,” said Butt.
“There’s a lot of young syndicate members including some first time owners. It’s great to get on the board early.”
The five-year-old Majestic Son mare was initially pulled back from her wide draw but then sent forward after not being able to find the running line. Happy to sit parked Butt was then able to secure a brief reprieve in the one by one position before peeling and showing a slick turn of foot to win, beating Baffled by half a neck with six lengths back to third.
“We’ve only had her for about a week. We can’t take much credit for the win. Robert Anderson did a great job with her. We didn’t have to change anything.”
Butt has had her eyes on Grettymac since she observed her debut win almost a year ago at Ashburton during cup week, and as fortune would have it, an opportunity to acquire the mare arose.
“I’ve loved her from when I saw her win on debut. I asked Robert about her, and he and Andrew Fitzgerald sorted something out.”
“Fitzy ran a giveaway on Instagram for a share in her and the winners of that were there yesterday. He does a great job getting people into the game.”
The win yesterday was Grettymac’s third in her career from her 18th start, having won on debut and again at her fifth start.
“She got into a really suitable race. Robert said she’s suited to mobiles but there hadn’t really been one for her for a while, so she’d dropped back into a suitable grade.”
“Her last starts had been against horses like Forgiveness, Rush, Mighty Logan, Sunnys Sister, Aroha Kenny – so she was really high up the grades so early in her career.”
And what’s next for Butt, Grettymac and her new crew of owners?
“I was hoping to go to Ashburton next week but I didn’t expect to win straight away, so she’s out of the rating band now for that particular race. We will just have to look for something else.”
