Racing: Butts raise the bar with US import

Tim Butt had to break one more rule with Mr Feelgood.

After six months of turning conventional harness racing wisdom on its head, Kiwi trainer Butt needed to do it one more time in the build up to Saturday night's A$1 million Final.

Butt lived a secret last week, knowing that Mr Feelgood was struggling to fend off a virus which could have ended his campaign.

The former US pacer had scraped into the Final but Butt knew even one hard training run would bottom him.

So fragile was Mr Feelgood's physical state Butt didn't even want to work him on the heavy dirt track inside the race track at Parklands. So last Monday he reverted to jogging him on the grass.

Jogging on grass is an old-school Canterbury training regime and one that didn't go down well in Queensland.

"The first day I did it the staff at the track came out and said under no circumstances was I allowed to jog in the grass, especially this week," said Butt on Saturday night.

"So I nodded, told them I wouldn't do it again and then jogged him on it every day for the rest of the week.

"I knew he couldn't have a hard run but it was the strangest big race preparation I have ever had with a horse."

It worked though, with Butt's brother, Anthony, then producing the perfect drive to steal the Final away from three tremendous performances in Blacks A Fake, Karloo Mick and Changeover.

And it was appropriate that Butt's rule breaking helped earn what he described as his greatest-ever win because he has done nothing but break the rules with Mr Feelgood for six months.

Consider that last September, Mr Feelgood was coming to the twilight of his career as a leading North American pacer.

Butt's close friend Richard Norman suggested they should buy the pacer. So in the middle of a global economic crisis Butt said yes, and then sought out buyers willing to pay the estimated US$600,000 needed.

Mr Feelgood had been a star in the US, winning the Little Brown Jug as a three-year-old but paying that sort of money for an ageing stallion who had been racing on the anti-bleeding drug Lasix is breaking more than a few rules.

Butt then didn't even bring him to New Zealand but straight to Australia and started setting him for races he shouldn't have been able to win.

Like the Hunter Cup at Moonee Valley last month. A 3050m standing start for a horse who only knew how to run mobile miles.

Mr Feelgood adapted, won the Hunter and was all of a sudden one of the Inter favourites.

But he never settled in Queensland, battling blood problems, prompting the special rule-breaking grass workouts last week.

"To be honest, he wasn't at his best tonight," said Butt matter-of-factly.

"He is a very good horse but Ants drove him perfectly and that is what won us the race."

Both brothers rated the win as their greatest moment in racing, realising they had achieved what so many harness racing people had debated the merit of for decades.

They had taken an elite North American horse and moulded him into an Interdominion champion.

Mr Feelgood will head to his new home, Christchurch, and spell before being set for the New Zealand Cup.

"I think with a spell he will come back a far better horse, once he has a real chance to settle into our racing and training environment."

If Butt is right, Mr Feelgood might find a whole new set of rules to break next season.