Written by Bren O'Brien
Western Australian trainer Bernie Miller may have given away the breeding game, but his decision to hand over his broodmares to his stable client Mark Jones has paid dividends with the victory of the promising filly Sheza Chalmer (Vital Equine {Ire}) in Saturday's Listed Belmont Guineas.
Miller has been training horses for around 45 years and five years ago set up Belle’s Park, an agistment and training facility, with his wife Karen, at Homeland, south of Perth.
At that point, he had a couple of broodmares, but due to the challenges of travel, opted to give them to Jones. One of them was Lady Chalmers (Dante's Fury), who subsequently produced Sheza Chalmer. That filly took her record to four wins from nine starts with her fast-finishing stakes victory on Saturday.
"I gave my two good mares to Mark. We left our other property Oakford and came down here to Hopeland and it now takes me an hour to get to Ascot," Miller told TDN AusNZ.
"I decided to not keep breeding. It wasn't really fair to leave my wife, who is not really a horse person, to take care of these mares, while I was off going to the track. It was too far.
"I asked Mark, and he would have been the only person I gave my horses to, and he accepted them."
"I asked Mark (Jones), and he would have been the only person I gave my horses to, and he accepted them." - Bernie Miller
When Sheza Chalmer was foaled, Miller went in part-ownership with Jones and a few others and unsurprisingly ended up with her to train.
"Early days, she was a big baby growing into herself and was doing everything in her time and in her space. Once we started to educate her through Paddy (Carbery, jockey) being on her, she quickly showed that she had fair raw ability," he said.
"I remember Paddy came back on her one time and he said this girl is going to be pretty good."
Unfortunately for Ryan, Lady Chalmers failed to produce another foal and died last year, just as Sheza Chalmer was starting to show her talent.
She debuted last October with a second at Northam before putting together back-to-back wins at Bunbury. She then ran second at Ascot before Miller sent her for a spell.
Patrick Carbery and trainer Bernie Miller | Image courtesy of Belle's Park
This campaign she has had five starts, winning a Saturday race at Ascot early in May and then running a very close second at Belmont earlier this month.
Stepping out to 1600 metres for the first time on Saturday, she finished strongly under Carbery to win by a 1l.
"It’s great for the owners. They are really beautiful people. They deserve some good luck and full enjoyment out of it," Miller said.
"We think she will get to a mile and a-quarter. We have got a race over here in two weeks' time where we will find out, that's the Belmont Oaks. She left nothing of her feed last night, so if she keeps progressing like she is and doesn't take a backward step, we will head toward that.
"If there were any signs she wasn't thriving, we’d be happy to send her to the paddock and she’ll come back for the fillies and mares' races over our carnival."
Keeping it small
Miller only has six horses in training and does much of the work himself, meaning long days and early wake-ups to get his horses to Ascot for trackwork.
But the smaller stable and more hands-on approach suits him just fine.
Spellers at Belle's Park | Image courtesy of Belle's Park
"You get to understand them a lot better when you are with them everyday. You can pick up on things. When you only have small numbers then you can put the time into them and pick up if they are not feeling well or if little things have changed," he said.
"I don’t want to be too big. I only ever wanted 10 horses at the most."
"When you only have small numbers (of horses) then you can put the time into them and pick up if they are not feeling well or if little things have changed." - Bernie Miller
That approach appears to be bearing fruit with Sheza Chalmer the second stakes winner in as many months for Miller, who also had Cup Night (Maschino) with the G3 Northam S. in May.
The 5-year-old gelding, who has earned over $525,000, has been the undoubted stable star until now and contested a pair of Group 1 races in Perth last year. He has headed to the paddock with a view of getting back towards those major targets again.
"I've pulled the plug on him for this campaign and opted to have a couple of extra weeks in the paddock and we’ll get him right for the Railway S. and the Kingston Town S. at our carnival. He's got his nose out of joint, though, because this new girl is starting to show him up a bit," Miller said.
"I'm not scared to put them back in the paddock and look after them. He would have raced a lot more with other people, but I’d rather race him and having him still going as an 8-year old rather than over-race when he was four and thinking of what could have been."
