Milo Bound For Sydney
- Sunday, 06 February 2011 07:59
New Zealand three-year-old Milo is set to make the leap from racing in the South Island to the pressure cooker atmosphere of Sydney.
Trainer Michael Pitman revealed the Randwick Guineas (1600m) on March 12 was on Milo's agenda after he won Saturday's Dunedin Guineas (1400m).
Borninthestates gave Pitman a feature double at the Wingatui meeting when he took out the Dunedin Gold Cup and will also be considered for a trip to Australia for the Sydney Cup.
Pitman is the current leader in the New Zealand trainers' premiership. He became the first South Island trainer in many decades to win the title in 2007-08.
The winner of four of his five starts, Milo has always impressed Pitman.
"I said before he went to the races that I reckon he's up with the best four or five horses I've trained," Pitman told NZPA.
"He had just been very, very impressive getting ready for racing."
Milo's owners John and Evelyn Carran turned down an offer of $150,000 before the horse raced but he was beaten into third at his first start at Wingatui on December 26.
Pitman said Milo was "flattened" three times in the first 400m of his debut and he took the unusual measure of lining up the horse twice more in quick succession so that his first three races came in nine days.
"When horses get knocked down at their first start, they do think about it," Pitman said.
"I had to get him over that and the only way was to go to the races and start winning. I just had to get him thinking this was a game he could win at. Horses have to learn to be winners."
Borninthestates has been a grand campaigner for Pitman with his record now standing at 77 starts for 16 wins and 21 placings.
He finished fifth in the Wellington Cup at his previous start after filling second in the Wellington Cup Prelude five days earlier on unsuitable wet tracks.
Those runs added to a disappointing week for Pitman after Coup Align, who requires firm footing, ran third in the $1 million Telegraph Handicap on an over-watered track.
"I walked away from Wellington a shattered man," Pitman said.
"I believe I was robbed the whole week."
The news for Pitman did not get any better when he learned Coup Align was being transferred to the Singapore stable of former New Zealand trainer Mark Walker.
