First driving success for Blair Mills

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 26

First driving success for Blair Mills

My Papa gave his partowner and trainer, Blair Mills, his first driving success when he raced away for a four-length victory in the Enterprise Print Pace at Richmond Park yesterday.

Mills, who has held an amateur trainer’s licence for about five years, was granted a horseman’s licence last December and his win yesterday came at his ninth attempt Mills, a salesman, trains five horses and races My Papa in partnership with three Richmond friends, Messrs Brian Biggs and Graham Cole and Mrs Beverley Hart. Mills is considering applying for a professional licence to train.

My Papa got away well

from No. 8 at the barrier and he was close up until near the 800 m where he reached the lead. He gradually drew out from the others and at the line he had an advantge of four lengths over Entrancing and Seafield Fran, which had trouble securing a run in the straight The second favourite, the free-legged Star Supreme, broke near the 600 m when at the rear.

Miss Falcon paved the way for a mammoth T.A.B. trifecta dividend of $11,853.35 when she won the O. L. Goldsmith Jewellery Pace by more than two lengths from Submissive and the outsider, Quondo Chelle. Miss Falcon was sent clear near the 700 m and she opened up an advantage the others could not bridge. Trained by her partowner, Ray Morris, she was driven by Jim Curtin, who drove another winner, Bonny Step, later in the day and has now had 26 wins for the season, his best total ever. Curtin enjoyed a great run on the West Coast holiday circuit where he won seven races and his win with Miss Falcon was his third at the Nelson meeting.

The favourites, Port Medley and Safecracker, as well as Starlozer and Submissive, lost their positions on the home turn, and they were not winning chances from then on.