Millar has great Time at Taranaki after training a running double
They may have only been midweek maiden races, but Janelle Millar got a big kick out of saddling back-to-back winners on her home track on Thursday.
She not only trained but also had a share in the syndicate that races Time Bomb, the runaway winner of the race Millar’s stable sponsored.
Millar was back in the winner’s circle after the very next race after stablemate Scarlett Letter justified her favouritism with a comfortable victory.
“They might be maiden races, but they’re just good as any other,” she said.
Time Bomb’s success followed a shaky start to the Towkay fouryear-old’s career.
“He’s taken three years to get it together, but I’ve always had faith in him. I’m so stoked that he’s won.
“Some of the syndicate members were giving up on him and we nearly sent him home to the stud we got him from, but I knew he had it in him.
“Some (of the syndicate) pulled out but we didn’t, so this is the repayment.”
Time Bomb was ridden by promising New Plymouth apprentice Dylan Mo, who is from Hong Kong originally and has now ridden five winners in New Zealand since signing up with Allan Sharrock. Earlier, Mo did a stint in South Africa where he rode four winners.
Mo could be heard
from
the grandstands yelling at Time Bomb in a bid to keep the horse up to his work having been told by Millar earlier that the horse was lazy.
But he needn’t have worried because Time Bomb and Mo had the finish to themselves.
Meanwhile, Scarlett Letter deserved her win, the Sir Percy three-year-old being placed on three occasions from just eight starts.
“She’s had so many places and there’s always been that one or two horses finish over the top of her,” Millar said
Scarlett Letter was ridden by apprentice Kei Chiong, who is a work-mate of Mo’s and also in New Zealand as part of a Hong Kong Jockey Club training programme.
Blinkers did the trick for Hawera galloper Five Tarts who was breaking through for her first win at her 12th start in the NZB Insurance Pearl Series Race (1200m) on the Taranaki card.
After disappointing on her hometrack when 11th of 14 runners at her previous outing on May 24, Anna Clement took the mare to the jumpouts slapping blinkers on her in a bid to try and turn her form around.
“Johnathon Parkes (who was also aboard on race day) came up to ride her and she went well, so I think the hood has really made her.”
Five Tarts is by Danfive out of the former handy racemare Jam Tart who Clement said won a lot of her races down in the South Island on wet tracks like Five Tarts struck on Thursday.
Parkes had Five Tarts on the pace and took the mare wide in search of better going in the straight and careered away to score by six lengths from runnerup Madam Defarge who battled on well after circling the entire field round the bend and looks like she won’t take long to quit maiden ranks.
Five Tarts is raced by The Five Tarts syndicate of 10 women, the majority from around Taranaki as well as two from Hamilton.
Hawera stables picked up two winners on the day, with the Paul Pascoe-trained Nitro Ted clearing maiden ranks in the first race on the back of two fourth placings by the son of Citi Habit who is raced by Paul D’Ath, of Hawera FAIRFAX NZ