Racing's new pin-up boy becomes first $2m pacer

The noisy crowd gets to Elsu and driver David Butcher at Alexandra Park last night. Picture / Greg Bowker

Champion pacer Elsu cheated death before bolting away with last night's $750,000 Interdominion pacing final at Alexandra Park.

The freakish stallion became New Zealand's first $2 million pacer when he won New Zealand's richest-ever harness race. He destroyed his opponents, coming from near last to effortlessly down fellow northern pacers Sly Flyin and Just An Excuse.

In doing so he became the richest New Zealand pacer of all time and earned a possible world championship title shot in the United States later this year.

The win crowned Elsu as the new king of New Zealand racing, the industry's pin-up boy.

But just a week earlier Elsu's career - and his life - could have ended in an accident on the Southern Motorway.

Trainer Geoff Small told the Weekend Herald he was within seconds of running off the road when driving the transporter carrying Elsu home to Patumahoe after the last round of Interdominion heats last Friday.

Small, exhausted after months of working early mornings and late nights during which he has become New Zealand's leading trainer, fell asleep at the wheel.

"It was only for a second, like when you fall asleep on the couch at home and you jolt yourself awake before you hit the cushions. But had it been a second or so longer we would have been in trouble because we were out near Otahuhu, coming up to some roadworks."

Small was not only carrying racing's new wonder horse but a far more precious cargo, his 5-year-old daughter Zena, his father and Elsu's constant companion, attendant Kendall Laidlaw.

"It is a wake-up call for all of us who start at 5am and are still going at 1am the next morning," said Small.

But for the trainer, last night made it all worthwhile.

More than 70 per cent of money placed with the New Zealand TAB on the pacing final was on Elsu. The largest bet placed was $15,000 at $1.65 for a return of $24,750.