Harrah's Hoosier Park: Tellmeaboutit aims to get closer to million-dollar mark

Tellmeaboutit is the type of horse anybody would like to have in their barn. Alvin Miller is happy it's his.

A 10-year-old male pacer, Tellmeaboutit has spent his entire career with Miller. During their time together, Tellmeaboutit has captured three Indiana Sire Stakes championships, narrowly missed an improbable victory in the Dan Patch Stakes, and put himself just $10,016 from reaching $1 million in lifetime earnings.

Tellmeaboutit will have the opportunity to get even closer to the million-dollar level on Friday (March 20) when he competes in a $13,000 conditioned pace at Harrah's Hoosier Park. The gelding, coming off a win in his most recent start at Hoosier on March 13, will leave from post three in a field of nine with Trace Tetrick driving for trainer Miller. Tellmeaboutit is 6-1 on the morning line.

"We're trying to get him over the hump," Miller said about reaching $1 million. "He still likes what he's doing. He shows up, or has been showing up, every year. He maybe can't do quite what he used to do, but he can still give you a 26 second quarter on the end of (a race). Honestly, I think if he wasn't at it, he'd be bored.

"He's just one of those that everybody would like to have in their barn."

Tellmeaboutit, a son of Tellitlikeitis-Portia Blue Chip, was a $25,000 yearling purchase at the 2017 Hoosier Classic Yearling Sale. He won five of 11 races and $85,400 as a 2-year-old, then blossomed into a champion at age 3, winning the first of his Indiana Sire Stakes titles and banking $269,155. He added Indiana crowns at ages 4 and 6 and continued to earn six figures through his 7-year-old campaign.

In 2021, at the age of 5, Tellmeaboutit just missed winning the $325,000 Dan Patch Stakes at Hoosier, coming up a neck short against Catch The Fire despite starting from post nine (the outermost position) and being in ninth-place at three-quarters. He finished with a 25 2/5 last quarter to nearly complete a 68-1 upset.

For his career, Tellmeaboutit has won 38 races, hit the board an additional 64 times, and earned a paycheck in 125 of 149 starts. He set his mark of 1:47 4/5 in 2022 at Hoosier, where he has made all but 15 of his starts.

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"He was always a very versatile horse," said Miller, who shares ownership of Tellmeaboutit with Twila Harts. "He'd come back every year, and you could race him any way you wanted; from the front, from behind, whatever you wanted to do. He's always had a quick turn of foot. He can't necessarily go for a mile, but he could give you a quarter as big as any of them. The rest of it pretty much speaks for itself."

Miller described Tellmeaboutit as a "lazy" horse when training but added "he can go when he needs to."

"I very seldom train him fast, but put him in with a horse, especially when you get down to the half, and it's all business from there," he said.

Good business, at that, as Tellmeaboutit and Miller aim for the million-dollar mark.

"From there, I don't know how long we'll race him," Miller said. "We'll let him tell us how long he wants to race. If he gets to a place where he can't compete at a decent level, he'll go to the pasture field for the rest of his life. He's got a permanent home."