What is the measure of the man? Some in the sport of harness racing might say John Butcher will be best remembered for the horses he owned and trained: Susan Blue, Shanandoah, Val Averil, Gay Reel, Ponty, Lorator, Prince Polka, Tobias, Desiree, Mathias, Josias, Abdias, Onias, Sophanias, Count Isa, Smooth Performer, Tooraloo – to name but a few.
Others would probably recount his wins as a driver – 305 at least, although no one is quite sure of the real total.
Alternatively, perhaps, the measure lies in the 717 winners he turned out as a trainer in his own right or in partnership with his son David, an achievement that led to his election to the Harness Racing Hall of Fame.
Then, again, perhaps the measure is the fact North Island Harness Racing this year acknowledged John and his wife of 60 years, Colleen, for their life-time contribution to the sport.
However, those closest to him, proud as they are of his accomplishments, will tell you the true measure of John Butcher lay in his family: that he was a good man, an honest, loyal man. An introvert by nature, he had a quick and subtle wit. He worked hard and smart; he loved his family unconditionally, and was loved in return.
John was born in Whakatane, named Stanley after his father, but always called John by his uncles. The name stuck and by the time he started school, he would answer to no other. Except, in later years, when Colleen would call him Stanley. "And if she did, it only ever meant one thing … he was not on her happy list," son David, himself a champion driver, told the more than 400 mourners in a packed St Peters Catholic Church, Cambridge.
As a young man, John was a capable scholar and he liked to point out that his teachers thought he would make a good accountant. But an office job was very far from what he saw for himself.
He had always liked horses and would go to the races from a young age, sitting on the fence near the "birdcage", as the parade ring is known, until the last event of the day. So in 1952 he left school at 16 and went to work for Norm Cunningham's galloping stable.
Told he would get too heavy to be a jockey, he returned home to Whakatane to work for feed company Loan and Mercantile.
That did not last long, either, and late in the year he made the decision that was to govern his life's path – he started working in harness racing with Max Allen in Pukekohe.
He was with Allen three years learning his trade and it was during this time he was with a workmate who asked a girl out. That girl happened to have a friend with her and John, being a man of few words, plucked up his courage and, smooth as you like, gave the girl's friend a gentle kick in the leg and said "You'd better come, too."
Colleen McCort agreed and the courtship started on what was to become a lifetime love affair.
It was while he was at Allen's place that John got to drive a horse "with attitude" called Prince Polka. John was asked to work the horse, as no one else was interested. He accepted the challenge, on condition he got to drive it at the races. It was agreed, and he won five quick races with Prince Polka before going on to make the final of the Inter Dominion – a competition of the best trotters and pacers in New Zealand and Australia.
Despite his many successes in later life, John remained proud of that first achievement.
John then moved on to a harness stable working for Peter Stewart in Papatoetoe. While there, he and Colleen married. Their new place was nothing flash. Son Philip, also a harness driver, told mourners at the funeral the couple's first home was "the garage at his dad's place". With no television, they produced their first child, Annette.
During the 18 months he worked for Stewart, John bought his first horse, Shenandoah, with his father and Uncle Jim. John, now 21, felt he was not going anywhere, so he made the tough decision to go out on his own as a trainer, taking Shenandoah with him.
He decided on his red with gold Maltese Cross colours by reversing those of a prominent parliamentarian of the time, Sir William Stanley Goosman, who had a few good gallopers.
John trained at McKendricks, across the road from Alexandra Park. In January 1957, he took the plunge, started Shenandoah at the races, and won. His career as both a trainer and a driver was off and running.
His next horse was a foal – Desiree. She became the founding mare to many of his good horses. She also paid for the land at Otahuhu where John and Colleen built their first home. But they still had no TV … second child Pauline was born.
In 1963 they bought a 55-acre property in Pukekohe where they lived for 10 years. They had TV by now (but only one channel) and child number three, David, arrived. And, according to David, "John decided he had worked out how to make boys" and, before he forgot, child four, Philip, arrived 15 months later.
But it was not all smooth running. In January 1970, John had a catastrophic crash at Cambridge raceway, where he was catapulted into the air across the racing horses to land on the running rail, injuring his shoulder and smashing, rather than breaking, his leg. He was six weeks in Waikato Hospital.
When the doctors took the plaster off, the leg had not mended. His options were two years in plaster or a painful bone graft. He opted for the latter and progressed from a wheelchair to crutches to a walking stick over the next nine months. Given the go-ahead to do "light work", he went out and shod five horses. (He had learnt the skill from blacksmith Andy Brown, who reckoned John had the longest apprenticeship of any farrier. Andy lived with John and Colleen for 11 years until he died at the age of 86.)
In 1973, John moved the family to Cambridge, first to Peake Road, where he trained a small team, and then to a larger property on Pickering Road, where he lived the rest of his life.
Daughter Pauline says the team of horses he trained at Pickering was small at first, until David and Philip were old enough and showed interest in the game, when he built it up to about 35 in work. He stepped down from driving to give David and Philip opportunities.
John's was a life engrossed in horses and people in near equal measure. He was, by all accounts, very good at reading people but, perhaps, even better at reading horses. Whatever, he understood the individuality of both.
John Butcher is survived by his wife, Colleen; children Annette, Pauline, David and Philip; 13 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Stanley John Butcher, January 27, 1936 – September 6, 2016
By Charles Little