Harness: Miller's young trotters have hopes for a bright future

For young trotters the journey to the racetrack can come with many bumps in the road. No matter how much potential envisioned by conditioners, the physical and mental growth of a trotter can make the job of finishing the education process daunting. Time is the general answer that trainers will put upon owners, yet it's a condition that can only come with the understanding that the wait will be worth the expense and time.

For trainer Julie Miller, there is good fortune to be surrounded by owners that recognize her experience when it comes to breaking and training young horses. In the case of the now-3-year-old Baby Oil, a Walner-sired filly that captured one of two divisions of the Bobby Weiss on Tuesday (April 25) at Pocono, the wait has paid off.

"I have great owners that understand," said Miller. "Baby Oil was immature and needed time to put it all together. She showed ability and thankfully the owners gave her the time."

Baby Oil did qualify once last July but never started, and that essentially put her behind the eight-ball for Miller this year.

"The good thing about the Weiss Series is that it gives opportunity for this kind of horse to get valuable experience. She's a nice filly that is well-mannered," said Miller.

Baby Oil made it into the win column this past Tuesday for the first time, but she showed talent in finishing second to a pair of likely future stakes winners in the opening two legs of the series.

"Andy [Miller] put her on the front-end and she finished strongly," said Miller, commenting on the 1:56 1/5 effort, with the homebred sent off at extremely low odds but returning the favor to the bettors.

Owners Jason and Douglas Allen bred and own Baby Oil, the third live foal from their $534K-winning mare Cee Bee Yes. Miller trained Cee Bee Yes during her two years at the racetrack.

"She was a very nice filly that won the New Jersey Sire Stakes as a 2-year-old," Miller said. "At 3 she won a Grand Circuit race at The Red Mile."

Indeed, Cee Bee Yes took a 1:50 2/5 record in 2014 in a race that she sat behind a torrid clip cut by Cooler Schooner. After three-quarters timed in 1:21 4/5, Cee Bee Yes managed to pass the speedster in front of her and then hold off the 1-20 favorite Lifetime Pursuit to pull of the 56-1 shocker.

It's way too early in the year to put Baby Oil in the class of her stakes-winning dam, but Miller has many reasons to be optimistic, and the owners have kept her eligible to the New Jersey Sire Stakes, as well as the Breeders Crown, a race that her dam finished second to Shake It Cerry in her final career start.

Baby Oil's older brother Big Oil was a top colt during his juvenile campaign in 2019 and followed in his dam's footsteps by winning a Grand Circuit stake at odds of 32-1.

"He was a horse that overcame a lot of obstacles," said Miller of Big Oil, a stakes winner as a freshman and sophomore, and a Hambletonian finalist in 2020.

"There are some nice fillies in this series," said Miller, who will have stablemate A Good Chardonnay in the May 2 finale. She won the first two legs of the series and then was a solid second to the unbeaten Kaddari this past Tuesday (April 25).

"That was a nice effort by her. She had to come from post eight and she fought to the wire. That's all you can ask," said Miller.

Kaddari was a $375,000 yearling purchase, more than twice the money required to purchase A Good Chardonnay.

► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter

On the pacing side of the stable, Miller is excited about the returning 4-year-old Max Contract, a daughter of Huntsville that took the Meadowlands by storm last year and is scheduled to make her season's debut on Saturday night at the East Rutherford, New Jersey, track.

"We had her entered on Saturday [April 22] and then those races got rained out," said Miller. "We don't like to qualify them more than once, so she's probably going to need a race."

Max Contract raced just once as a juvenile and then made-up ground quickly as a sophomore last year. She won three consecutive stakes races at the Meadowlands, bookending her Geers victory with a 1:48 3/5 victory in the Mistletoe Shalee, followed by a 1:49 3/5 win in the Shady Daisy on Hambletonian Day.

Towards the end of the year Max Contract tailed off a bit, and Miller appeared to understand why.

"She didn't have the starts at 2 and for her it was like her first season of racing. With all the traveling she did, she wasn't the same at the end of the year," Miller said.

Nevertheless, Max Contract, when on her game, exhibited sub 25-second speed and that bodes well for a return to stakes action this year.

"That's a great group of older mares, and I'm looking forward to racing against them," said Miller, paying homage to a deep group led by 2021 Horse of the Year Test Of Faith, along with the stellar 4-year-olds Niki Hill and Treacherous Dragon.