I'm Just Going to Eat the Cat

In horse racing, supposedly horses are said to relax around goats. If you want to butter someone up, that means you want to garner their favor through some kind of flattery. This saying goes back to India where people would pray to certain gods by throwing little blobs of ghee at them and ghee is clarified butter. Another jockey related saying is to when hands down or with your hand off the reins. It gets to where you don't even smell it.