Butterworth pins hope on gear change for Apollo Ten

By Glenn Davis

Group 1-winning trainer Paul Butterworth is hoping a crucial gear change can help return track specialist Apollo Ten back to form at Gatton on Friday.

Apollo Ten is set to launch start number 21 in the Greg Elliot Memorial Cup over 1100 metres.

The four-year-old son of Magna Grecia has started three times at Gatton for two wins and is coming off a last start fifth to the Darren Bell-trained Cinque Terre in a 1200 metre Benchmark race at Eagle Farm.

It’s a race designated for apprentices only and Butterworth has booked Tahlia Fenlon to ride the four-year-old.

Butterworth, who famously won the Group 1 J.J. Atkins at Eagle Farm in 2017 with Capital Gain, is rebuilding his stables after scaling back in recent times.

“It’s been a tough 12 months, so I decided to scale back my numbers a bit,” Butterworth said.

“But, I’ve since bought a couple of nice horses from the sales and I’ve decided to build back up again.”

A cabinet maker by trade, Butterworth has been training for over a decade and has produced some top gallopers in his career.

He believes Apollo Ten can eventually become a metropolitan Saturday winner once he overcomes some bad barrier manners.

“He’s cost himself a few races because of his barrier manners, but he’s still been able to win four races,” Butterworth said.

“He’s only little but he can gallop and I think he’s capable of winning in town as he did run second at Eagle Farm in January.

“It’s just been his barrier manners, but we’ve been working on that a lot lately.”

Apollo Ten wore winkers early in his career but will race in blinkers for the first time at Gatton.

“I’m putting blinkers on him this time,” Butterworth said.

“Early days he raced with the winkers, but his barrier behaviour never improved. I put him in a jump-out against The Inflictor with blinkers and he cruised to the line.

“The main plan at the moment is to fix his barrier behaviour but I think he should be hard to beat in this race.”