NAMAZU - TOO BIG! TOO STRONG! ASHLEY BUTLER TALKS ABOUT THE ARCHER WIN FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, April 30, 2024

He is big. He is powerful ... and, on Sunday in The Archer, he was bold .... very, very bold.

The fact that the Ricky Vale trained Namazu and jockey Ashley Butler took no prisoners when scoring an end to end victory in Queensland’s richest regional race was an obvious credit to all concerned.

Butler, who was winning the race for the second time in only the third running of The Archer, tells the story from his perspective.

“I probably took off a little bit earlier than I probably would have at any other time, knowing the horse and knowing he was pretty much one hundred percent set for this race and a hundred percent ready ... and, I thought, if they hadn’t run me down at the 200m mark they weren’t going to catch me at all.

“Once I saw they hadn’t got to me by the 100m mark, I knew I was pretty much home and hosed.

“In the last five strides I was thinking what celebratory gesture can I come up with here? I’m not real good with them, because I don’t do it very often.”
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“He is a monster horse,” continued Butler.

“In the race ... and even riding him in trackwork this prep ... being him, he feels like he is not going as fast as he actually is going.

“Coming down the straight I was thinking to myself I don’t actually seem to be going that fast, but because he is such a big horse and has got such a huge stride, he covers ground, and he is really light on his feet.

“That’s when he races the best ... when he can lead, and he can dictate and just roll along at his own tempo.

“He can then quicken off a hot speed. He gets them chasing from a long way from home and he just breaks their hearts. Some drop away. Others just can’t get to him.

At his best, that’s exactly what he does. There is no two ways about. He breaks horses down, gets them chasing. They just can’t run him down and he just breaks their hearts.”
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“Getting down to 59kg was a big stretch for me,” admitted Butler.

“I normally walk around at about 63kg at the moment, but I had a fair bit of racing during the week ... had Townsville on the Tuesday and Mackay on Friday and I was just able to work on my weight slowly during the week to get there..

“Obviously, Ryan Wiggins is his number one rider. Ryan’s won the most races on him and rode him all through the carnival but, with the program he was following this prep, he was always going to get a bit of weight.

“With me being a heavyweight rider, it was just going to play in my favour a bit more because he wasn’t going to carry as much dead weight.

“That’s how I got onto the horse to start off with,” (for the first time in a race at Mackay on March 11 in Namazu’s first-up run and only lead-in trace to The Archer).

“I trialled him a couple of times and the rode him and won in Mackay ... and that’s sort of how I retained the ride.

“It all ended well.

"It was a very good day.”

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