Republican Party's little brother wins on debut at Addington

By Michael Guerin

It would be easy to assume Anthony Butt’s booking on Tour Party for his effortless debut win at Addington on Thursday was a case of keeping it in the family.

And it kind of was, not that brother-in-law and co-trainer Cran Dalgety had much say it in.

Tour Party’s debut was a happy homecoming for Butt, the champion driver for decades in Canterbury before moving to Victoria. 

He is moving home within weeks to take up a role at Stonewall Stud’s Canterbury base and will do some of their Alexandra Park driving too when needed in the coming months.

With Butt being the brother of co-trainer Chrissie Dalgety you could think she and husband Cran booked “Ants” to partner Tour Party when their son Carter was suspended.

“That would have been a very nice thing to do but Ants booked himself,” laughs Cran.

“Carter was in Victoria and telling Ants how he had been suspended and we had some nice two-year-olds who might need a driver this week.

“I reckon Ants booked his tickets straight away and then we found out later.

“Lucky for us he did because having somebody of his experience on a horse for its first start is always a bonus and you get the feeling Ants will be getting a lot of drives when he moves home permanently.”

It was hardly the hardest drive of Butt’s stellar career and Cran, or Chrissie, could have probably driven Tour Party to win the three-horse race.

And while Republican Party’s little brother still has some maturing to do he clearly has some of the family ability, which may see him earn a trip to Alexandra Park next month.

“We will watch the Young Guns heat up there tomorrow [Friday] and see what we think of them but he could go up for the last heat and hopefully the final on March 20.”

If Tour Party makes it to Alexandra Pak he could be well named as he might sell a few plane tickets of his own.

“He has over 40 owners and many of them were here tonight and loving it,” said Dalgety from Addington.

“We paid $150,000 for him and the first owner in was Ange Boyd [wife of trainer Stephen] and she has got 24 of her females mates into him. 

“And we have about 16 or 18 others in him and they are all loving it.”

The Dalgetys will be marrying more horses up with owners this Saturday when they hold the annual post-yearling sale open day, starting at noon at Kentuckiana Lodge.

“We've got 14 yearlings all together and we are really looking forward to showing them off to people on Saturday.”