Minstrel brings joy for Canterbury couple

Woodend Beach husband-and-wife team David and Catherine Butt combined to win almost 750 races and annexed three New Zealand training premierships during a glittering two-decade career before handing in their licences three years ago.

Now the North Canterbury couple are enjoying success at the same level as breeders, due largely to their homebred gelding Minstrel, who completed back-to-back victories in Western Australia’s signature event, the $450,000 WA Pacing Cup at Gloucester Park last Friday night.

“It’s by far the best win we’ve ever had,” Catherine said after watching the Rocknroll Hanover gelding get up off the canvas to outstay a star-studded field in the time-honoured Group One.

Catherine explained the background to the breeding of Minstrel.

“When we were training a big team of horses we got to see a lot of fillies and families come through that we quite liked. One of them was Top Gear, the grand-dam of Minstrel,” she said.

“We leased her as a young horse and later bought her. We bred Minstrel’s mum, Ovaride, raced her and then bred Minstrel.

“David and I trained Minstrel as a two and three-year-old. He would probably be one of the last horses that we trained.”

The couple won three races with three placings from seven starts with Minstrel in New Zealand before sending him to leading Perth trainers Greg and Skye Bond.

Now an eight-year-old, Minstrel has gone from strength to strength in Western Australia, winning a further 28 races, including 10 at Group level, and boosting his career bankroll to $2 million.

In addition to his two WA Pacing Cup victories, his major successes include the Fremantle Cup, Golden Nugget, J.P. Stratton Cup, Pinjarra Cup (twice), WA Lord Mayor’s Cup and a heat of the Inter Dominion. He also finished a gallant second to Don Hugo in last year’s Inter Dominion Final at Menangle.

Catherine’s first foray into breeding came around 40 years ago through a joint venture with her sister Michelle.

“Our father John Thompson loaned us the mare Natural Elegance. At the time I had just left school and Michelle was still at school,” Catherine said.

“She was the grand-dam of Scandalman, who won the Victoria Derby among other good races in Australia. My family raced him with his trainer Ian Wilson in Sydney.

“Two or three years later, after David and I got married, we decided to buy some yearling fillies at the sales.”

“The first year we bought three yearling fillies to be potential broodmares with American owner Ed Wardwell. We raced them and later bred from one of them.”

The El Patron mare Going Royce provided the Butts with their first significant breeding success.

“We bought her as a yearling with a friend, Stephen Hooper,” Catherine said. “She won a heat of the Nevele R Fillies Series and later left 13 foals for 11 winners. She was a wonderful broodmare.”

One of Going Royce’s progeny was the In The Pocket gelding Tribute, a winner of 16 races and $610,993, including the NZ Sires’ Stakes 3YO Final, Kindergarten Stakes, Kaikoura Cup, Franklin Cup, Tasmanian Pacing Championship and two heats of the Inter Dominion.

Another top-class racemare and broodmare for the Butts was the Love You mare Habibti.

“She was born on our property. Her owners sold her to us and Rob and Lyn Paterson as a yearling, along with her weanling brother as a package,” Catherine said.

Habibti won eight Group races, including five Group Ones, and at stud has produced four winners from four foals of racing age, headed by Sires’ Stakes three-year-old champion Confessional and the three-time Group Three winner Resolve. She was named the NZ Standardbred Breeders Association’s Trotting Broodmare of the Year in 2022.

The Butts also bred another Sires’ Stakes winner in the Love You gelding Masterly, while Opulent (by Christian Cullen) tasted Group One success as a two-year-old in the Caduceus Club Classic before later being leased to the Bonds. She retired with $269,515 in stakes and has since left three winners, headed by Listed winner In Excess and dual-gaited Menangle and Albion Park winner Bitcoin.

Over the past 12 months, the Butts have gradually reduced their breeding numbers.

“We culled a few mares and gave a few away,” Catherine said. “We are breeding from only three mares this year and they are all pacers – Opulent, Ovaride (the dam of Minstrel) and an unraced Always B Miki two-year-old filly out of Ovaride named Indestructible.

“She got a bump on her leg so we thought we would breed from her and bring her back into work after she’s had the foal.”

Ovaride foaled a colt by Bettor’s Delight last month and has since been served by Perfect Sting.

“We also have three trotting mares that we go halves in with the Patersons – Habibti and her two daughters Astound and Resolve,” Catherine said. “But the way it has fallen, Rob and Lyn will be breeding from those three mares this season.

“Next year we’ve got two racemares, one called Pandaia, who is racing in Sydney at the moment, and the trotting mare Forgiveness, that we will probably breed from.”

David and Catherine are now focused solely on breeding and educating their young stock, leaving the training duties to their son Bob, who trains a large team from the family’s property.

To date, Bob Butt has trained the winners of 224 races and more than $3.2 million in prizemoney.

“We work our young ones up ourselves and then send them on to him,” Catherine said. “It’s very rewarding, but you’ve got to stick at it.”