Young Kiwi trainer holds Flemington stage

4th Nov 2011

Racing is a field of dreams.

In most walks of life, one comes to terms with limitations and realises that elevations to company chairman, prime minister, All Blacks captain or Archbishop of Canterbury are not going to happen. We settle for who and what we are. 

In racing, while this particular horse may prove merely useful, or even moderate, there's always another horse around the corner who might be capable of winning the Derby, Cup or Great Northern we've been dreaming about.

Even when you – astoundingly, amazingly – achieve your racing dream, it doesn't mean there's nothing left to strive for. In racing there are always fresh targets to aim at, fresh dreams to dream. 

Six months ago, young Cambridge trainer Trent Busuttin set an ambitious target for Sangster (NZ) (Savabeel), a big, raw, still weak – but rapidly improving – gelding by the up-and-coming young sire Savabeel (Zabeel).

He'd bought Sangster (NZ) for NZ$19,000 at the New Zealand Bloodstock Ready To Run Sale, just under a year ago today and set up a partnership of which Wellington businessman Tommy Heptinsall took half. The other 50% was spread between Martin Bradley, Dave Kneebone and Kevin O'Brien, from Hamilton; Kevin Greelees, Larry and Travis Stewart, from Taranaki, and Matthew Fenwick, a Kiwi based in Hong Kong. 

Busuttin's target from six months out, not an especially common one for Kiwi trainers until recent years, was the AAMI Victoria Derby. 

Last Saturday, on arguably the greatest day's racing in the Southern Hemisphere, Trent Busuttin stood on the Flemington dais with his dream fulfilled and his target achieved. Sangster (NZ) had won the Victoria Derby. 

Busuttin was stunned. It was a surreal result, a dream come true.

But it was a matter of only a few questions later that a fresh dream surfaced.

“I'd like to be back here this time next year, but three days later, to watch this horse line up in the Melbourne Cup.”

The Melbourne Cup wasn't on the mind of Trent or his life and training partner Natalie Young this year.

They were back home on Sunday, with Sangster (NZ) out in a Victorian spelling paddock awaiting the first available flight back this weekend.

It will be back to a spelling paddock when he gets home. You might say Sangster (NZ) has accomplished a lot in his first campaign, especially since, as an October 27 foal, he turned two in real terms only a few days before the Derby.

“When we bring him back in, the planning starts again,” says Trent.

“Do we go to the AJC Derby in the autumn, or the Queensland Derby in the winter? Maybe we should race in Sydney in the autumn and winter in Queensland, which is what Dad used to do when he campaigned in Aussie with Castletown. Whichever way we go, the Melbourne Cup is the ultimate target.”

Castletown, by One Pound Sterling ranks in the triumvirate of New Zealand's greatest stayers of the last half-century. Great Sensation won three successive Wellington Cups in the early 1960s; a decade later, Il Tempo won an Auckland Cup and a Wellington Cup. In the first half of the 1980s, Castletown won an Auckland Cup and three Wellington Cups. Oh, and a New Zealand Derby.

He campaigned with great credit in Australia, too, winning the AJC St Leger, Caulfield Stakes, placing twice in the Sydney Cup and once in the Melbourne Cup. 

He was the best of many good horses Paddy Busuttin trained from his then Foxton base.

Despite growing up in this environment, Paddy's son Trent was going to university, and who knows what career after finishing high school in Foxton. But he decided to take a gap year before university and went up to Singapore where his father was then training. He didn't come home for 10 years, during which, at some stage, university quietly disappeared from the agenda and horse training became a full-time career. 

Back home, Trent trained in partnership with his dad for about 18 months, after which Busuttin Senior went up to Macau. Trent moved to Cambridge nearly two years ago with his boyhood sweetheart Natalie. From August 1 this year, Natalie became his official training partner as well, though she had long been a valuable helper in the training operation.

“I've tended to be out front and getting all the credit,” says Trent. “But Natalie does lots of work and deserves the accolades as well. And we have wonderful staff. Hayley Phillips went across with Sangster when he first went to Sydney, back in mid-August, and has been with him for the whole three months from then to the Derby. I was going back and forth, but she was with him the whole time and did a great job.”

But hey now, hey now, to paraphrase Split Enz, the dream ain't over. It's for Melbourne again, Melbourne 2012, only this time it's the first Tuesday in November instead of three days previously.