Speedy filly Taking The Miki emerged as a major hope in the $100,000 Diamond Classic on May 28 when she smashed the track record for two-year-old fillies in scoring a runaway victory in the Group 2 APG WA Gold Bullion for fillies at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
Taking The Miki, third favourite at $3.60, trained by Ross Olivieri and driven perfectly by Chris Voak, trailed the pacemaker Extraordinary Mary before finishing with a powerful burst to win by just under six lengths from the $2.15 favourite Wonderful To Fly, with Extraordinary Mary ($2.35) a length farther back in third place.
The winner rated a sparkling 1.54.2 to set a track record for two-year-old fillies over 1730m, eclipsing the record of 1.55.1 set by Lady De La Renta when she won a heat of the WA Sales Classic on April 11, 2017.
In winning, Taking The Miki turned the tables on Wonderful To Fly and Extraordinary Mary, who had defeated her at her two previous starts.
“I wasn’t expecting her to win, but thought it was possible,” said Olivieri, who added that Taking The Miki and Extraordinary Mary (who is trained by his wife Jemma Hayman) would have between a week and ten days off before being prepared for the Diamond Classic and the $100,000 Westbred Classic three weeks later.
“Jemma picked Taking The Miki at the 2020 APG yearling sale, and originally I went crook at her for buying the filly. But the filly ticked all our boxes.”
Hayman outlaid $26,000 to buy Taking the Miki, with whom she now races in partnership with Steve Burnside, Garry McRae, Bernie Eales, Debbie Putland, Bill Brandsma and Ted and Margaret Russell. The filly now has earned $39,116 from three wins and two placings from six starts.
Her sire Always A Miki was a champion pacer in America, earning $2,826,176 from 30 wins, 13 seconds and three thirds from 53 starts. Taking the Miki is the first foal out of the Bettors Delight mare All American Dream, who managed just four wins (two at Busselton and one each at Bunbury and Williams from 63 starts).
Hayman admitted that Taking The Miki’s emergence as a top-flight two-year-old had surprised her, saying: “It wasn’t that long ago and just before her first trial that I thought she was going to struggle early in the season,” she said. “She wasn’t showing a lot of enthusiasm at home or on the track and was making quite a few mistakes.
“We thought that we had a bit of trouble on our hands, and we almost thought that she would need more time. But to her credit in the couple of weeks following she put it all together, and she has got better and better with every run.
“I’d like to give credit to Denise Trobe, who is a breeding analyst extraordinaire who said that the filly ticked all the boxes.”
by Ken Casellas