New Plymouth trainer Janelle Millar secured the seventh black-type win of her career in Saturday’s Listed Hawke’s Bay Cup (2200m) at Otaki, and this one meant more than most.
Millar also co-bred and part-owns the emerging stayer Testify Me, who added Saturday's $120,000 feature to his last-start success in the New Zealand St Leger (2600m) at Trentham last month. In an even more special twist, Testify Me races in the colours of her late grandfather, the highly successful Stratford trainer Jack Taylor.
"It's made me quite emotional, especially with those colours that he wears," Millar said on Saturday. "A lot of the owners are family, and we bred him as well, and the fact that he races in Grandad's colours makes it even more special."
Testify Me was sent out as a $3.20 favourite for the Hawke's Bay Cup on Saturday, and the race could hardly have gone any better. Jockey Chris Dell enjoyed a comfortable run in second as Sporting Chance set a sedate pace out in front, then moved up on the outside of that runner approaching the home turn.
The strength and stamina of Testify Me shone through down the straight in testing Heavy10 ground, drawing away from Sporting Chance and turning back the challenge of the strong-finishing Titled to win by a length and a quarter.
"He beat a tidy field in the St Leger last start and did it well," Dell said. "Totally different track conditions today, but he's two-from-two now on heavy, although I don't think he needs wet ground.
"I was outside the leader today, dictating the pace which wasn't fast. I was in control all the way, pushed the button a little bit at the 600m and he had more there. He's definitely a very nice Cups horse in the future – hopefully the handicapper won't hurt him too much."
Testify Me has now had 17 starts for five wins and four placings, along with a fourth in the Gr.3 Manawatu Cup (2300m) in December. He has earned $199,080 in stakes, with $161,250 of that amount coming from his breakthrough season as a six-year-old this year.
"We've always loved this horse," Millar said. "He showed us heaps right from the start, and we've always known that he has a big ticker.
"He does think about things a bit and can be a bit hard to handle, but when he does work, he's a good horse. He's gutsy and tough.
"We still think he's going to be better again next year, because he still has a bit of development to do."
The sixth individual stakes winner by the sadly short-lived stallion Atlante, Testify Me is out of the Volksraad mare Cherry Bomb, who Millar co-owned and trained for a five-start career headed by a four-length maiden win at Hawera in March of 2014.
