Roydon Muscle could be “hard to catch” at Addington tonight

[Wandering Eyes]

By Michael Guerin

Some simple maths suggests Roydon Muscle can win the feature trot at Addington tonight.

That is if trainer-driver Bob Butt’s prediction of what his stable runner is capable of is on the mark.

Roydon Muscle is a relative newcomer to Butt’s care who after two disappointing performances at Nelson has been excellent in his subsequent two Addington starts.

“We was working so well before Nelson I thought he had to be hard to beat up there but he didn’t race up to it,” explains Butt.

“I thought maybe he was one of those older horses who works well but doesn’t put in on race day but he has been racing way better back at Addington.

“Maybe he just likes it there.”

Roydon Muscle bolted in down in the grades two starts ago then finished a solid fifth after an early mistake in Muscle Mountain’s demolition job in the Group 3 over 1980m last Friday.

He returns to the stand tonight off a 10m handicap in the Breckon Farms Trot, with only one horse in front of him so the chance to head forward and make his main rivals Bounce N Beyond (30m) and Eurostyle (40m) chase hard.

“I reckon he can trot 3:17 or 3:18 for the 2600m and that would make him hard to catch,” says Butt.

“Obviously Eurostyle is a good mare so she will be hard in the small field while Bounce N Beyond seems to be getting better and he trialed well recently so he might be the one we have to beat.”

If Bounce N Beyond was to win it would be appropriate as he was bred by race sponsors Breckon Farms, whose owners Ken and Karen Breckon were honoured with the Outstanding Contribution award at the HRNZ Horse of the Year dinner in Christchurch on Saturday.

Butt unleashes an early season two-year-old in the last race on the rare Thursday night Addington programme, with Fanfare (R10, No.2) facing just three rivals.

The son of King Of Swing is unbeaten in four public trials and will be hard to hold out but while the field is small it has a Cran and Chrissie Dalgety-trained youngster and two from the Ross Houghton barn so stables who know plenty about training juvenile winners.

Earlier in the night Butt rates Prophet (R5, No.9) a nice maiden but he will need to be starting from the outside of the front line with some horses better than maiden grade inside him, including last Friday’s eye-catching debutante Elegant Delight.

And impressive last-start winner Milou steps up in grade in Race 7 where the recent stable addition has to overcome a second line draw, albeit with her most favoured rivals Gone Surfin and Amaretto Delight drawn wide on the front line.

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