Harness: Lightning could strike twice for Hill and Ryder with Niki Hill

Shopping for a yearling and buying one are two different things. When trainer Chris Ryder attended the October 6 session of the Lexington Selected auction, he had one filly in mind that he was interested in for owner Tom Hill.

Hill was enjoying a huge season with Ryder at the time as Party Girl Hill was the talk of the town, having just dismantled her filly competition in Grand Circuit action two days earlier and poised to take on (and defeat) the boys the next weekend in the Tattersalls.

"I was looking at and really liked this filly that Brett Pelling paid $260,000 for," said Ryder. "Niki (Hill) came a little later in the sale and it was just two days after Cattlewash had won in (1):46 4/5."

That was bound to attract attention as the Always B Miki-sired filly from Road Bet, a daughter of Bettor's Delight, was hammered down for $155,000 with Ryder signing for owner Hill.

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"She was a handsome filly," Ryder said. "She wasn't pretty and looked like a boy."

Called Road Test Miki at the sale, she was rechristened with the "Hill" moniker with Ryder taking the filly home to prep her for a 2-year-old season.

"She was good right from the start," said Ryder of Niki Hill, who on Monday, August 9 blistered the Mohegan Sun Pocono Downs oval with a 1:50 3/5 mile in capturing one of three Pennsylvania Sire Stakes events for juvenile pacing fillies.

What made Niki Hill's mile stand out among the three divisions at Pocono was not just the final time of her victory but how much faster it was than the other two divisions. Treacherous Dragon, the aforementioned $260,000 yearling that Ryder missed out on, was a 1:54 winner in her division while the bargain buy Onecrookedleg paced in 1:52 4/5.

Niki Hill handed the formerly unbeaten Captain Cowgirl her first defeat but needed a back half in 54 4/5 to do so. It was just Niki Hill's second lifetime start, but driver Dexter Dunn learned much from that first victory (July 23) at The Meadowlands in a division of the Kindergarten.

"She's not that quick sprinting but can go at high speed for a long period of time," said Ryder of Niki Hill. "Dex backed it down a little too much in the Kindergarten and she almost got beaten." So when Dunn pulled the trigger with Niki Hill this past Monday he moved her aggressively to the lead passing the stands and then never applied the brakes, letting the filly pace strongly down the backstretch and right through the finish line, only taking a hold of her when the race was no longer in question.

"I really didn't want to race her on a five-eighths mile track," said Ryder. Still the trainer loves the surface at Pocono and didn't think it would hamper his filly's effort. For perspective, the 1:50 3/5 clocking in her second lifetime start and first over a five-eighths mile track was just two-fifths shy of the world record taken in a Breeders Crown elimination in 2013 by All Star Rating over the same Pocono oval.

Yet Ryder, who has been here before with a host of brilliant pacing mares, wasn't getting too excited about the clocking.

"I know the other filly is undefeated but what does that mean at this time of the year," Ryder said.

With just two starts things are going pretty much as Ryder had planned for his filly. He has raced her sparingly early in the season before embarking on a late summer-fall schedule.

"We're going to point her for the She's A Great Lady," said Ryder. "I'm only going to race her on the big tracks."

Ryder never wanted to rush Niki Hill but he said she made his job a bit easier. "She bruised a hoof when we were all set to qualify her and backed off three weeks to allow it to heal," said Ryder.

Niki Hill made her qualifying debut with a 1:54 1/5 victory at The Meadowlands on July 10. A week later she would finish fourth in a qualifier, but caught a lot of eyes when she paced home in 26 flat for the final quarter with driver Dexter Dunn offering little encouragement. In her debut Dunn had her on the lead in just a 58 opening half and didn't let Niki Hill accelerate until the homestretch where she needed to work some to hold off the pocket-sitter in a 1:53 1/5 clocking.

Ryder hopes that Niki Hill can prove herself against better competition that she's sure to encounter at Woodbine Mohawk on September 18 for the She's A Great Lady eliminations. The rest of her schedule has her at The Red Mile and back to The Meadowlands for the Breeders Crown.

The emergence of Niki Hill gives Ryder a great amount of joy given how tough things looked early this year when he had to call owner Tom Hill with some terrible news.

"That was bloody awful," Ryder said of the telephone conversation where he told the owner that his prized pacing mare, 2019 champion Party Girl Hill, had broken down in training and would race no more.

While Hill enjoyed an epic year with Party Girl Hill in 2020, his last weekend was filled not just with the monster performance from Niki Hill but also a Hambletonian Day upset by his sophomore Grace Hill in the Shady Daisy at The Meadowlands over Fire Start Hanover.

"Party Girl Hill was a horse I got when she was ready to qualify as a 3-year-old," Ryder said, giving full credit to those who helped bring the filly to him. "With Niki Hill, I picked her out for Tom and that means a lot."

Party Girl Hill is also embracing her second career and is currently carrying her first foal by last year's Horse of the Year Tall Dark Stranger.