Mike Miller's horses were in a class of their own at Scottsville on Saturday. Picture: iStock
Mike Miller had the day of his horse-training life at Scottsville on Saturday, with five winners on the eight-race card.
A tad frustratingly for Mike, he wasn’t on course to join the stable celebrations – illness keeping him at home for the day. It was left to assistant trainer Craig Eudey to sum things up.
“It’s been an incredible day. It’s almost like a dream!” said Eudey after winner No 5, Ninety Nine Heroes, had gone from pillar to post in the last race on the programme, a 1950m MR78 Handicap.
Fellow assistant trainer (and Mike’s son) Sterling Miller, a co-owner of all the five winners, felt moved to ring up TV presenter Warren Lenferna to exclaim that he’d never enjoyed a treble on a single day, let alone the quadruple he’d just watched on TV at home. And then there were five.
The Miller quintuple arrived at cumulative win odds of 6,300-1!
The yard had been confident of a decent day when they loaded up 11 horses at their Summerveld base – for the short trip up the highway to Hollywoodbets Scottsville – but no-one dreamt of venturing a measly rand on that All To Come Win combo!
It all started in Race 3, with stable jockey Tristan Godden steering 2-1 favourite Flight Maneuver to a comfortable victory in a Maiden Plate for females.
The Millers were back in action in Race 5, with Godden pushing Billy Of Tea to a narrow maiden victory, with stable companion Only A Poet grabbing third.
In Race 6, the jockey repeated the dose on the filly Sabatini in an FM84 Handicap – and again in the seventh with five-year-old gelding Barzalona, who completed his fifth career victory.
Could the Miller-Eudey team make it five?
They had a good chance, sending out four of the 12 runners in the lucky last race on the card, with Godden’s mount Ancient World the apparent stable pick at 9-2.
But it was 16-1 shot Ninety Nine Heroes that jockey Mathew Thackeray kept bowling along to deliver the rousing curtain call.
The five-timer lifted Miller’s winning aggregate for the current season to 16 (from 130 runs) – topping the KwaZulu-Natal log on wins and placing second on stakes-money accrued.
A few weeks ago, Sterling Miller said the stable had set a target of 45 winners for the season, more than they’d achieved before, but with notions of a provincial championship not top mind. Now, with just over three months of the season elapsed, the team is already a third of the way to the target and the regional title has swum into view.
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