No $1m The Race despite big win for The Lazarus Effect

By Michael Guerin

Bob Butt isn’t going to be talked into a fight he can’t win.

So even though The Lazarus Effect may be the most in-form open class pacer in the country be won’t be going to the $1m The Race at Cambridge on April 10. 

His trainer-driver made that quite clear after The Lazarus Effect used a trailing run to beat most of our best pacers for the second Friday in a row at Alexandra Park on Friday night.

This time Butt was aggressive enough early to cross We Walk By Faith but then handed up straight to Merlin and beat him up the passing lane in the Auckland Co-Op Taxis Free-For-All.

It was an even better performance than last Friday as he had to run past a better horse and with form question marks over some of our best pacers you could make a very strong case The Lazarus Effect would be one of New Zealand’s better chances in The Race.

Butt says that won’t be happening.

“I have him booked to head home on Tuesday to get him back to the beach,” he says.

“I don’t think he needs to go to what will be a really hard race at Cambridge so I will take him home and bring him back for the three other open class races up here after that.”

The Lazarus Effect is still in his first proper open class campaign and Butt looking after him now may see him rise very quickly into our top echelon and pay dividends in the future when he won’t have to worry about Leap To Fame or Swayzee.

Merlin was good in second and still on the way up but Republican Party was only okay in fourth by his high standards and Akuta dropped out after sitting parked so the head scratching over this crop continues.

Earlier in the night Butt trained and drove River to win an even richer race in the $150,000 NZBS Harness Million, again coming from the trail.

The 12-start maiden was purchased out of the Purdon barn by Todd Anderson of Taffy Ltd ultimately looking to her future broodmare value as River is a sister to Stella Rouge.

That means the sisters have pulled off the remarkable double of the Harness Million Three-Year-Old Pace two years in a row and River’s broodmare career is already set in stone.

“This is such a great bonus for Todd and the owners he has put into her before she heads to stud so I am stoked for them.”