Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
When Mitch Miller drove $31.70 outsider Soho Seraphine to victory in the Trotsynd Pacing To Victory Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night it completed a successful meeting for the combination of Miller and astute trainer Kim Prentice.
Earlier, Miller and Prentice combined to win the Trotsynd Syndication Pace with Soho Dow Jones ($3.70), and they notched second placings with Soho Moonraker ($11) in race one and Soho Santorini in ($15) in race two, and fifth with Soho Skyfall ($126) in race three, in which Prentice’s other runners Jimmy Rocks ($91) finished third, and Soho Honey Rider ($41) was seventh.
Soho Seraphine, a noted frontrunner, went into Friday night’s event with a losing sequence of seven, and she was smartest to begin from barrier three but was unable to cross to the front, with the polemarker My Ultimate Chevron ($12) holding up and also keeping out $26 chance Stormyskyes, who began fast from barrier seven.
Miller was quick to size up the situation and he took full advantage of the gap which opened up behind My Ultimate Chevron by angling Soho Seraphine across to the pegs to follow the pacemaker.
The Miki Taker, the $1.40 favourite from barrier six, enjoyed an ideal passage in the one-out, one-back position, following Stormyskyes, who dashed to the front with 450m to travel. Mitchell then eased Soho Seraphine off the pegs and the four-year-old mare ran home strongly to get to the front 110m from the post and hold on and beat The Miki Taker by a nose, rating 1.57.5 over the 2130m journey, after final quarters of 28.3sec. and 28.9sec.
Miller attributed much of Soho Seraphine’s return to form to Prentice’s recent decision to increase the mare’s workload. “We were tossing up whether to put her in the paddock when Kim decided to work her much harder,” he said.
“Kim has been working her twice as hard lately, and hopefully tonight’s effort was a step forward to getting her back to her Melbourne form.
“I was a little unhappy when we were unable to get to the front early, but when I lobbed on to the leader’s back, I was happy.”
Soho Seraphine is by American sire Betting Line and is the first foal out of Mach Three mare Angel Bromac, who was retired after 14 starts for four wins, five placings and $56,500 in WA in 2016-17. Angel Bromac finished second to Lady Luca in the Group 1 Diamond Classic in June 2016 and was second to Maczaffair in the Group 3 Gold Bracelet the following month.
Soho Seraphine looks set for many more wins. She has raced 40 times for ten wins, 16 placings and $239,656 in prizemoney. She has raced 22 times in Victoria for five wins and 13 placings, six times in New South Wales for two wins and one placing and 12 times in WA for three wins and two placings.