Value Buy: Miller aiming for Generosity repeat with Trapeze Artist filly

Lot 70 - weanling filly (Trapeze Artist x On The Record {Pierro}) - $26,000

Buyer: Simon Miller Racing

Vendor: Noble Bend Farm

Western Australian trainer Simon Miller was prepared to spend a lot more to secure a daughter of Widden Stud’s Trapeze Artist at Sunday’s Magic Millions Gold Coast National Weanling Sale, so he feels pretty pleased to take the filly home for just $26,000.

“She was just a very athletic type,” he said on what drew him to the filly. “She had a massive girth and a powerful hindquarter to her. She’s got a beautiful shape - she has all the things I like to see in a horse, so she really ticked a lot of boxes.”

Physique trumps pedigree

For an end user like Miller, the page doesn’t matter as much as what he sees walk through the ring in front of him.

“The pedigree just tells me how much I’m going to pay,” he said. “I was pleasantly surprised with what I paid, because I was prepared to spend a lot more. It goes to show what can happen when you’re an end user and you really do your research.”

Lot 70 is out of On The Record, a daughter of Pierro and a full sister to multiple juvenile Group performer Rome. Her dam Dance Card (Exceed And Excel) is a winning daughter of Listed Dequetteville Stakes victress Volcada (NZ) (Stravinsky {USA}), whose best offspring are the Group 3 winner and multiple Group-performed galloper Kaepernick (Fastnet Rock) and Blue Hotel (I Am Invincible), who won the same stakes race as her dam.

Further back, the family is closely connected to G1 Robert Sangster Stakes victress Spright (Hinchinbrook).

All of that, however, was secondary to the animal for Miller.

“Conformation is the biggest thing to me,” he said. “I am really fortunate that I was taught by Merrick Staunton on what to look for in weanlings, he has been a major influence on my purchasing. He showed me the dos and don’ts. You can get there in the end yourself, but he really took me under his wing and showed me what to do from the start.”

Competing in the west

Miller has been active at the weanling sales for the last decade and has carved himself out a successful niche for taking weanlings back over to race in Western Australia.

“When I take a horse back to Perth, I’m not competing with Vinnies or Snitzels every weekend, so I can get lucky if a stallion is cheaper here but still hitting goals ,” he said. “I think it’s a major plus to have this niche (of buying weanlings). Trainers are struggling to sell their yearlings at the moment, so there’s less competition. That’s a niche I can occupy as I have weanling clients who buy in every year.

“And being an end user, I don’t have to worry too much about the family or the stallion if I like their physique, so we have had a lot of luck doing things this way. Because we have had so much success, these owners just reload every year.

"The hardest part of the equation was getting it going a decade ago when they had to wait 18 months for some action, but now they get action all the time as they always have a 2-year-old going.”

One of those big successes has been Generosity (Divine Prophet), who Miller bought at the Gold Coast weanling sale for $9000. Her performance in the west attracted the attention of B2B Bloodstock, who bought the mare privately for an undisclosed amount and brought her east, where she has rewarded them with a Group 2 victory in the G2 Challenge Stakes.

“She was a great little gift for us,” Miller said. “She was just brilliant.”