Benjamin Butcher steps up with win at Alexandra Park

By Michael Guerin

Driver Benjamin Butcher made the most of a rare opportunity to fill in for father David at Alexandra Park on Friday night, even though he would have preferred the circumstances to be different.

The son filled in for Dad winning on Brookside Girl after David was injured in a strange race fall at Cambridge the night before.

David was thrown from the sulky after Dreams Of Eric ducked in soon after the start of Race 4 at Cambridge, tripped and brought down out David’s drive Franco Miki.

Butcher was thrown into the air and landed on his horse at least partially breaking his fall but was still too sore to drive on Friday night.

“It might be a couple of weeks before he is back race driving,” says Benjamin.

“He didn’t break anything but has quite bad bruising and is very sore.

“But it could have been a lot worse.”

Benjamin has himself been involved in two bad smashes in recent years and hasn’t been back driving long.

“I’m all good. I still get the occasional headaches from the knock I took but the good days are more common that the bad ones now.”

Both Butchers and their owners had reason to smile on Friday as Brookside Girl got the run, and tempo, she needs to win pacing a 1:56.9 mile rate for the 1700m.
 
She doesn’t have high speed so when they went that hard it suited her,” says Benjamin.

It was Brookside Girl’s third career win and David’s ninth training success of the term for the smallish team the father and son combo train together.

Earlier in the night J T Boe put an exclamation mark on a remarkable winter for Team Telfer when he won the first race, just hours after the TAB bookies put up the white flag for the trainer’s premiership market.

After a dazzling two months the Telfers look set to win the premiership by 50 wins or more so the TAB paid out all trainer’s premiership bets on Friday, a full five months before the end of the season.

That might be a record for an early payout anywhere in the world.

Others to star at Alexandra Park on the small card were Hawkeye Pierce and Castana, who took out the two features.

Hawkeye Pierce lost an early dig for the lead but driver Tony Herlihy got him to relax sitting parked and he was still too good, suggesting he hasn’t finished winning for the winter and could even go on the verge of open class this time next year.

And Castana was suited by a relentless tempo in the $19,000 Lone Star Trot to bolt clear for Dave and Clare McGowan, aided by a beautiful drive from Taitlyn Hanara.