Racing: Butcher and his ‘beast’ ready to cut through

Harness racehorse Duchess Megxit, being driven by Zachary Butcher. Photo / Trish Dunell

Star driver Zachary Butcher’s spring is about to get a lot more serious, but not all of that action is going to be with him in the sulky.

Butcher is a week away from resuming his race-night association with Merlin, who returns in the Spring Cup next Friday as he sets a collision course with Leap To Fame in the New Zealand Cup in November.

But while he can’t wait to get back behind the horse he calls “a beast”, Butcher is also the man to follow at Alexandra Park tonight.

He brings the brightest light in his own small stable in Mantra Blue back to the races while he will partner a handful of winning chances for the powerful Purdon/Phelan stable headlined by Duchess Megxit (race seven, No 4).

“Mantra Blue will be better for her fresh up third,” says Butcher, who will hand the reins on the smart mare to junior driver Monika Ranger tonight.

“She is in a handy field and this is by no means her grand final, as she has some good mares races coming up with far higher stakes.

“She is ready to win if she gets the right run, but I don’t think Monny will be taking off on her so she could be a bit dictated to by the way the race is run.”

Tactics and tempo probably won’t matter to Butcher and Duchess Megxit, who has real x-factor and only meets a small field as she starts down the path to a second half of the season loaded with major targets.

She was second in a small but select heat at the workouts last week, but Butcher says that was just a ‘pipe opener’.

“She was very relaxed, almost lazy – but I also didn’t kick the earplugs out.

“I know once I do that she will fire up, but she is ready to go.”

Duchess Megxit is the real deal, having the speed only the top fillies are blessed with, and while she has the gate speed to lead a small field like tonight she looks even more scary when swooping.

“If she keeps going the way she is she could end up one of the best mares I have driven,” says Butcher.

Earlier in the night he will pilot Miki Doo for Purdon/Phelan in race two, where stablemate Blackjack will be hard to beat after a huge fresh fourth in a better field.

Butcher finds himself in another stablemate’s clash in race three where he partners Meant To Be (No 7) against Higher Power, who won last time they met on race night.

“They met at the workouts last week, and I think we [Meant To Be] had Higher Power covered.

“They are both still learning and only baby trotters, but I think Meant To Be has a big motor – but he still likes having a good look around.”

Butcher’s father David is the new trainer of the best horse in tonight’s $35,000 Metro Trot Final, with Pantani having joined his stable as former trainer Ross Paynter has moved to Sweden, where his wife is from.

Pantani (race six, No 14) faces a 30m handicap in a capacity field, but he has an open-class trotter’s motor and may still be good enough to overcome those obstacles.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.