An extraordinarily well-bred pacer has scooped one of the most prized trotting titles on the calendar with Emerald Stride claiming the Seelite Windows and Doors Redwood Classic.
A delighted trainer-driver David Miles swept past leader Always Ready via the sprint lane to salute in the Redwood Day feature at Maryborough today.
“Unbelievable,” Miles told Rob Auber on Trots Vision post-race. “I was having a look on Friday at the honour roll for this race and some great trainers and drivers have won it. To be amongst them now is really special.”
Miles said prolific owner Emilio Rosati would be “stoked” with the Group 1 triumph by his two-year-old filly, who’s not only sired by pacing great Bettors Delight but is out of Emilios Stride, a half-sister to US Pacer of the Year Well Said.
“We did qualify her as a pacer, she just wasn’t quite fast enough,” Miles said. “The day we switched her over we knew she was something special.
“I always thought she was a trotter, but she was paid up for the APG and it’s a lot of money to pay up for those series, so we tried to get her to that series. She trialled as a pacer at Bendigo one morning and Rod Petroff drove her and said, ‘I think she’s a trotter’.
“A week later she went to Melton and run a mile in five, they don’t do that after only have the trotting shoes on a week.”
That trotting destiny was fulfilled with victory in today’s $50,000 Classic, when Emerald Stride ripped off the second row to challenge favourite Always Ready for the lead before settling on leader’s back and pouncing late.
“To land where she did off the second row was amazing,” Miles said. “When the barrier draw come out I was really shattered because I thought if she drew the front line she was going to be super hard to beat and to win off the back row here is very hard to do.
“(Behind) leader was the perfect spot in this sort of race. It was very windy. The leader did a great job, that wind down the back straight really hurt the horses out in the open and I just had the perfect trip.”
Michael Howard