Meadowlands: Julie Miller’s 4-year-old trotters take the stage this weekend

For trainer Julie Miller there appears to be a sense of doing right by her horses and over time her horses doing right by her. Such is the case of Get Legs, a now 4-year-old son of Muscle Hill that missed his entire 2-year-old season and only emerged late in 2020 for the trainer.

"He broke a sesamoid behind as a 2-year-old," said Miller. Get Legs debuted in a June qualifier in 2019 at Gaitway Farms but sustained the injury in that race that shelved his entire freshman campaign.

"When we brought him back at 3, he sustained a soft tissue injury," said Miller. "We sent him to Lindy Farms and they did a great job with him."

A $115,000 yearling purchase, Get Legs would finally give Julie and her husband/driver Andy Miller the chance to show what he could do late in 2020, with the colt winning his first four starts in rather effortless fashion.

"Andy did a great job with him, taking him back and letting him learn how to race," said Miller. Get Legs scored in 1:55 1/5 in his first pari-mutuel start at The Meadowlands on November 13 and has since shown a new wrinkle while working himself up the class ladder. He made his 2021 debut on January 8 in powerful fashion, taking a new lifetime mark of 1:53 1/5 while winning by nearly seven lengths at The Meadowlands.

On Saturday, Get Legs will race against the best field he's seen and will be up against it having landed post nine. Get Legs moves out of the restricted non-winners-of-five-races class and faces a more seasoned overnight field in the ninth race conditioned event with a purse of $15,500. The race includes some more experienced and fast-class horses with Double Account (post 3), a 1:51 2/5 winner in 2020 at Hoosier Park, Cash Me Out (post 8), a $1.2 million career earner, just two classy rivals.

"We're going to do right by him and make sure he gets the attention. Anytime you have a horse that's had his physical history you want to stay on top of everything," said Miller. "We're trying to space out his starts, racing him two weeks in a row and then giving him a week off."

Given that it's only January, Miller appears to be hopeful that Get Legs can blossom into the type of horse that can reach and race against the top-class horses later this year. "Hopefully we can preserve him now for the bigger races over the summer," Miller said.

On Friday, Hipster K will make his debut for Miller in a non-winners-of-2 conditioned event carded as race two.

"He's a big horse and he probably needed time to develop," said Miller of Hipster K, a 4-year-old by the late world-champion Sebastian K. "Andy was happy with the way he qualified."

Hipster K was a 1:56 3/5 winner in a Meadowlands qualifier on January 9 but Miller seemed to think the horse will need a few races. "Andy's going to race him from off the pace," Miller said.

Miller was enthusiastic about 2021 and that's expected given that she'll have the 2020 Dan Patch Award-winning 2-year-old trotting colt Venerate back in her stable for the 3-year-old classics.

"He's turned out in Florida now and scheduled to go back into training with Carter Pinske on February 1," Miller said. "Either Andy or I will go down to Florida a few times to see how he's doing."

Venerate captured the Mohawk Million as well as the Kentucky Sire Stakes final during a memorable campaign. "I was very happy with the way he came through the year. There was a lot of traveling going to Canada and racing in the Midwest," said Miller.

Venerate was a horse that Miller tried to purchase as a yearling but got outbid. "He was the number-one trotter on our list. When I saw Carter Pinske signed for him, I asked if he would let us go partners and he agreed."

Venerate earned $772K in his first year on the track. The son of European sire Love You is out of a full sister to 2014 Hambletonian champion Trixton.

The Meadowlands has 13 live races on Friday and a 14-race card Saturday with a first-race post-time of 6:00 PM both nights.