Seven-year-old gelding Irish Butterfly registered his first win in nearly six-hundred days when he outlasted his rivals over 2200-metres at Bendigo on Sunday. The son of O’Reilly was ridden to instruction by jockey Damien Thornton, who got his mount to relax into a nice rhythm outside race leader Tavisteel. When Thornton asked the Dwyer runner to accelerate at the top of the home straight, Irish Butterfly left Tavisteel in his wake and looked all over a winner at the furlong marker. The galloper got a little lost out in front and Thornton had to lift his mount to the line, eventually winning by the barest of margins from Matt Cumani’s fast-finishing Slate. Trainer Dwyer admired the performance of his victorious runner. “He carried five kilos more than the second runner and six kilos more than the third. That can’t be underestimated”.
Dwyer wasn’t convinced he’d be in the winner’s stall until the result was announced post-race. “Luckily – and I do say luckily because I thought he’d been beaten on the line – he was able to win by an absolute nostril hair. And thankfully he’s got quite a large head because he needed every bit of it”.
Where to now?
“There’s a really nice race for him at Bendigo, it’s six weeks away”, Dwyer said. “It’d be nice to have a run in three weeks time and then three weeks into that. I think that’s the perfect gap for him”.
The win was Irish Butterfly’s fifth from thirty-two starts and he will take confidence into his subsequent runs this preparation from his performance on Sunday.