Butt asked her son Roddy to have a try with the son of Earl and he took a human approach to training Vulcan.
"He's just been showing his age a wee bit and a bit of aches and pains," Jenny Butt said.
"But my youngest son has taken him over - he's a rugby coach and he's treating him like a rugby player.
"He worked on his back and he's just got the soreness out of him."
Butt admitted the $1 million mark was looking some way off as Vulcan battled against the open-class trotters for a year.
"I was wondering about the million at one stage - it didn't look good a couple of times and we weren't going to race him if he's sore," she said.
"The minute he showed that he was going to pull the plug - but once he came right, it was great."
Vulcan first rose to prominence with an all-the-way win in the 3-year-old ruby section of the Harness Jewels at Cambridge in 2010.
"When he was a 2-year-old, they didn't like him that much. But as a 3-year-old he was awesome," she said.
"He had three trips to Australia - in the first one he ran second in the Interdominion [to I Can Doosit] - and a couple of big races.
"The second one, he just won everything and last year he was struggling."
Now the million has been topped, Butt is happy for Vulcan to tell her son Roddy (now in the ownership) and fellow owner and breeder Don McKenzie what he wants to do next.
"It's been a wonderful ride," she said.
"He's just an awesome wee fella - but to get that [million] is unbelievable.
"We'll just look after him now, although we were going to anyway." Legendary driver Ricky May was surprised he needed to go to the bottom of the well with Jason Rulz in the Central Otago Trotting Cup at Omakau yesterday.
But when he heard Jason Rulz's winning time of 3.11.4, it all made sense.
The Greg and Nina Hope-trained 6-year-old eclipsed Lady Toddy's 10-year-old track record by 0.2 seconds in an extremely competitive cup which had a host of chances in the straight.
"He had nothing up his sleeve but no wonder," May said.
"I was three-wide cover, but he had nothing up his sleeve - he was all out today which is unusual for him really.
"I had to drive him as hard as I ever have. But he pricked his ears 100m out - he thought he was going to win easy."
The 2014-15 season did not begin well for Jason Rulz. He was nominated for the New Zealand Cup, but sub-par runs in the Hannon Memorial and the Canterbury Classic had his Woodend Beach trainers Greg and Nina Hope scratching their heads.
"We couldn't get his blood right before the [New Zealand] Cup meeting, so we pulled the pin on the Cup and ever since we pulled the pin, he's slowly improved," Greg Hope said.
"I think he's taken a little bit longer to get back really but we've been really happy with his runs."
A fourth in the junior free-for-all on New Zealand Cup day was followed up by a second in the Green Mile at Methven and a fourth in the Ashburton Cup on Boxing Day when he ended up parked.
"Even the Ashburton Cup was a good run," Hope said.
"He's a follow-the-speed type of horse, not a parked horse. It's not his cup of tea."
May agreed with Hope's assessments of the 6-year-old's recent runs.
"He actually went really good at Methven and the Ashburton Cup was pretty good," May said.
"He's a sit-sprint horse really." Hope indicated Jason Rulz was likely to head to the Summer Cup at Addington at the end of the month for his next start, after he ruled out starts in the Northern Southland and Invercargill Cups.
"It's too far back - too big a handicap for him." Jason Rulz did not make himself known in the group 3 feature until in the piece, and his part-owner Richard Dellaca appeared to be following his horse's mantra.
Not even a call over the PA system encouraged Dellaca to appear in the birdcage for the cup presentation, despite having made an appearance after Jason Rulz's win in last year's cup.
"I think he's scared about having to make a speech," Hope said.
