The Mr Trotting of Sweden, Stig Johansson, gives a rare interview during an equally rare break from work at his fabulous stables in the run-up to Monday's $1 million Elitloppin Stockholm. By MICHAEL GUERIN
STOCKHOLM - Imagine starting your first NBA game, looking across at your opponent before the tipoff and seeing Michael Jordan's pearly whites beaming back at you.
Or being a handy professional boxer getting in the ring for your shot at the title and finding Ali mouthing off in the opposite corner.
Taking on Schumacher in his Ferrari, pitching to Mark McGwire or playing first-five in your first rugby test and knowing Michael Jones was the opposition flanker.
You get the idea. On Monday (NZT), Anthony Butt gets to live that feeling.
Butt is the man behind Lyell Creek, who takes on the world's best trotters in the $1 million Elitlopp in Sweden.
These are super equines, trotting millionaires trained and driven by men who are celebrities in their own countries.
Then there is Stig. Stig H. Johansson to be exact.
Trotting is mammoth business in Sweden and Stig is the chairman of the board.
He trains the favourite for the Elitlopp in defending champion Victory Tilly, who Lyell Creek must face in the first heat.
Because the Elitlopp is the greatest prize in world trotting you would think winning the legendary event in Stockholm last year, just 30 minutes from his palatial stables, would have been the greatest moment of Johansson's career.
But for the chairman of the board it was another day at the office - he had already won the Elitlopp five times.
Johansson is everywhere in Sweden. His serious, slightly lined and formidable face graces posters in supermarkets and billboards. He has his own fan club and website. He is Mr Trotting.
Weeks away from his 56th birthday, Johansson has already trained more than 6500 winners and driven 5531. A staggering 24 per cent of horses he lines up win.
Compare that with New Zealand's greatest trainer, Roy Purdon, who trained just over 2200 in his 50-year career, or our undisputed greatest driver, Tony Herlihy, who has reined around 2300 winners in his incredible career.
When it comes to Stig, the numbers are big.
And now brothers Tim and Anthony Butt, good Canterbury Draught drinking boys from Christchurch, are daring to take on the greatest.
To understand just what that entails you have to understand the factory that is Johansson's stables.
In New Zealand a major harness racing stable may have 40 horses, of which at most 12 will be trotters.
Johansson trains 230 trotters, including 140 in racing condition at the peak of the season.
All trotters, no pacers in this land where pacing is seen as a bastardisation of a beautiful breed of horse.
Training 230 horses means Johansson is a touch busy for media commitments and his property is off limits to most journalists. I could tell you how we managed to get an invitation, but you wouldn't believe me.
But suffice to say, last Tuesday was an eye-opener.
Johansson does not have one barn at his stables, he has three. Which nicely matches his trio of training tracks.
The carpark is full of Mercedes and Volvos, and their occupants, mainly owners, look like a gathering from the United Nations, just richer.
They mill around, discussing the sharemarket and how inconvenient the grounding of the Concorde fleet was as they try to pretend they don't notice that some of the army of stablehands look remarkably like Anna Kournikova.
Still, that's Sweden for you.
Like any circus there is a ringmaster, a racing manager who each day presents the 30 stable staff with a printed list of where and when each horse will work.
The staff warm up the horses and bring them to the coffee house next to the main track a minute before they are supposed to be worked.
Johansson is nowhere to be seen. Then two sweating superstars will emerge from their workouts and Stig and his offsider will jump from their sulkies, throw their reins to waiting stable workers before leaping into the next sulky.
Then they are off for another fast workout, putting the Johansson polish on another budding world champion.
It is like watching Batman and Robin train racehorses.
The process is repeated every five to 10 minutes and Johansson stops for only a second to look at each of his drives, taking a mental picture for future reference - who needs different shoes, more work, a change of gear and so on.
The boss passes the information to the stablehands while the manager deals with the owners.
Stig doesn't smile and rarely talks. The chairman of the board is working.
He is not so much in charge of a stable as a factory whose production line churns out champion after champion. All that is missing are the barcodes.
Then the unbelievable happens. Stig stops. He bounds out of a sulky and into the coffee house, emerging to sit in the sun.
Hands are shaken and stable regulars are stunned as Johansson takes time out to talk to a couple of unknown Antipodean journalists. Questions are measured to a man who does not suffer fools.
Like any King he wants to know about foreign lands, new places to conquer.
"I would love to come to New Zealand and Australia to win the Interdominion," Johansson says.
"I have seen videos and the horses look good and the tracks beautiful.
"Maybe, when I get the right horse I will come down there and have a holiday."
Holiday. Probably a word Johansson hasn't used much.
So what does the King think of this ungainly Kiwi trotter who dares to threaten his court come Monday?
"Lyell Creek is very good. He is one of the best four in the Elitlopp. But he is a long way from your New Zealand."
Then the King is gone.
With a smile and a handshake he leaps back into another sulky, where he feels most comfortable, and the production line starts again.
Close by, Anthony Butt, a stable guest for the day, watches with awe and envy.
He knows that for Lyell Creek to become the world champion he will have to beat the best in the world - and one man from out of this world.
As the Kiwis leave, another Merc pulls into the carpark.
The Anna Kournikova-lookalikes fuss over the million-dollar horses, the rich owners pull their belts just a little too high over their waistlines, and the King marches on.
They say in sport it is important to know your opposition. But sometimes it is a little more comfortable not to.
Racing: Welcome to trotting nirvana
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.