Manhattan retired

Twelve win harness racing mare Manhattan (Bettor’s Delight) has been retired.

Trained by Bob Butt for the majority of her career, Manhattan was owned by the Loyal Travelling Reserves Syndicate.

Her major wins were in the G3 Caduceus Club Northern Breeders Stake in Auckland and the Listed Sires Stakes Southern Mares Classic at Addington.

In the Northern Breeders Stakes her time of 2-38.4 for the 2200 metre mobile was 0.1 of a second outside the race record held by Adore Me.

She was placed in eight Listed or Group races in New Zealand and was beaten by a neck in the G1 Queen Of Hearts won by Allamericanlover.

She had two stints in Australia where she was trained by Jack Trainor and Jack Butler. She won twice there and was placed another eight times in fourteen starts.

Her last start was at Albion Park at the end of last month when she ran second to Tay Tay, beaten by half a neck.

“She’s just got home and is going to Captaintreacherous,” Butt said.

He says the original plan was to serve her in the spring and race her in some of the good mares races like the Queen Of Hearts at Alexandra Park.

“We were going to race her in foal but the stud that stands Captaintreacherous won’t allow you to. They’ve got to be retired from racing for forty days I think it is, which is a bit of a bugger.”

From sixty two starts she won twelve races and was placed a further twenty five times, earning $323,019. Manhattan has a best mile time of 1-49.6.

Butt feels he’s got a mare that could fill the gap left by Manhattan in Princess Meritaten (A Rocknroll Dance). She’s won four of her eight starts.

“I got her off Brian O’Meara in October when he retired. I’ve got another half a dozen for the O’Meara family.”

Meanwhile three of Butt’s more talented horses were back at the Rangiora trials yesterday.

Cyclone Zion W (Father Patrick) won his non-winners trot by a neck.

“He’s a funny horse, he hates the grit. The other day at the races he was flicking his head and it threw him off balance. I put him in a stand today to qualify him from a stand and he was good. I’ll keep him to stands for a while now.”

Trotter Wilma’s Boy, (Tactical Landing) who’s won one of his four starts is also well into another preparation and he ran third in his heat.

“He didn’t trot that well. We’ve just had a few issues with his gait. He’s still big and weak. We’re fiddling round with a few things. He trialled a lot better last week but still wasn’t a 100% so we changed his shoeing, but he was worst this week. He’s a project at the moment.”

Classy two year old Ukraine (Captain Crunch) who has some big targets, was also back at the trials, finishing a close third.

“He hit the line really good. He’s got the Sires Stakes coming up. The first heat is on the 20^th September. We’ll get him through there and hopefully qualify for the final.”

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink