Six-year-old makes purr-fect start for new stable

It’s a well-worn phrase, but you can understand if Victorian hobby trainer Carson Millar is smiling like the cat who stole the cream at the moment!

His latest harness racing acquisition, six-year-old Pet Kitty (Pet Rock) put together a series of four successive Friday night victories at Melton during July – and today, (Aug 5), all going to plan, Millar will take ownership of a property to establish his own training base at Meredith, between Ballarat and Geelong.

“I’m training out of Emmett Brosnan’s place at Meredith at the moment, which is great, but I’ve bought myself a farm, 18 acres here at Meredith, so it’s a pretty exciting time,” Millar said.

“I hope within a couple of months I will have a track in and be able to set up my own base where I can train between four and six horses, and hopefully breed a few as well,” he said.

It’s no doubt also a good omen the 35-year-old train driver is enjoying the best run of form in his training career, courtesy of his only horse Pet Kitty, purchased from Mildura in March.

“She was advertised for sale and looking through her form I saw she hadn’t scored up probably 27 times in her career,” Millar said.

“But I watched a fair few of her replays and saw that when she did things right, she had a fair bit of speed.  I’ve always thought that if you can get a mare happy and healthy, they will do their best for you, so that’s what I’ve concentrated on since I got her,” he said.

Millar appears to have got the mare’s preparation spot on.  Sent straight for a spell after he bought her, Pet Kitty had three starts in June for a close up fourth, third and second, before her run of Melton victories.

“It’d been quite a while since her last spell, so I gave her a good break and let her refresh.  She came back feeling and looking terrific and ready to go. She can be a bit cranky at times, but I just go with it. I gallop her every second day, and she seems to enjoy that,” he said.

Millar has placed Pet Kitty to perfection, with the four successive victories in $4500 restricted class events. Well handled by young Victorian concession reinsman Jordie Leedham, Pet Kitty has showed faultless manners and blistering gate speed, running the opposition off their legs, scoring by 12 metres, 14 metres, 19 metres and nine metres.

“Jordie has done a great job on her.  We’ve had some fun together over the years, but he has really developed a good affinity with her,” Millar said.

“The horse definitely likes the short trip better than the longer trip, but we’re not sure yet how much she has to give because in her wins, when the death horse drops off, she seems to lose focus a little bit, compared to when there’s a horse up outside her,” he said.

Pet Kitty recorded solid times in her victories and is now an NR51 rater.  She will take a step up in class at her next assignment at Shepparton (race 6) tomorrow night, but Millar is confident she will be competitive at the next level.

“She seems like a nice horse, but I’m a bit hesitant to push her too hard too quickly, because I want to keep her confidence high.  We will start to meet some better ones now, and that will show us a bit more how much she has got,” he said.

“Hopefully we can pinch a couple more races in the country and down the track, if she is good enough, I would love to eventually test her in a mares metro level race.”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink