Michelle making the most of her savvy purchase

Michelle Phillips will make her way on to the track at Melton on Saturday (Dec. 31) boasting a harness racing training record the envy of most.

When her entrant Kimora Saffi (Great Success) lines up behind the mobile in the Aldebaran Park Vicbred Super Series final for three-year-old trotting fillies, it will be her third Group 1 runner in six starts as a trainer.

And it will vindicate the decision Phillips took three years ago when she purchased the daughter of Great Success at the Shepparton Mixed Bloodstock Sale as a weanling sight unseen.

“I always wanted a trotter,” Phillips said. “I bought her because she was out of the dam of Keayang Livana, who was an up-and-coming young trotter at the time.”

It would prove a particularly savvy purchase after Keayang Livana won the Vicbred Super Series final for four-year-old trotting mares on this night two years ago.

Kimora Saffi was winless in five starts as a two-year-old and then broke through twice in the care of trainer John Nicholson earlier this year, before being transferred to Phillips when she secured her trainer’s licence.

Kimora Saffi provided the young horsewoman with her first training success by taking out a Vicbred heat at Maryborough on December 19.

It was the filly’s fifth start for Phillips, who tread lightly to preserve the three-year-old’s future after seven bone chips had to be removed from her hocks.

“If I was going to have her long-term then I had to look after her and she has only had three to four runs each preparation until now,” she said.

“She is a big, strong, solid girl now and is starting to reward me, so now it’s time to see what she can do.”

Phillips races Kimora Saffi with her mother Faye, who she gifted a 50 per cent share in the horse as a birthday present.

“Mum just loves seeing her go around and has received some prizemoney along the way,” she said, most notably from the heat win, when she sat parked outside the leader and scored despite carrying “a flat tyre … from the first turn”.

Kimora Saffi has to contend with a second row draw in Saturday night’s final, from which Phillips is hoping to settle on the fence.

“Courmayeur should hold up from the pole with Stingofawasp on her back and I will be looking to get across three back on the pegs,” she said. “That’s the plan. She looks and feels a million dollars.”

For complete race entries, click here.

by John Dunne, for Harness Racing Victoria