Summerveld trainer Mike Miller’s belief in Waterford Stud’s horses has paid dividends recently and the latter’ switch from quantity to quality has also paid off.

Miller picked two young horses off the farm at Waterford last year and paid for them before they could enter a sales ring. They were King Of Kings colt King’s Knight and Warm White Night colt Executive Power.

The former won the Gr 2 Umkhomazi Stakes over 1200m at Greyville last time out by a comfortable 3,25 lengths and the latter made an impressive debut over 1200m at Scottsville, winning by 3,5 lengths after being backed in to 7/10.

Miller said about King’s Knight, who gave the yard their third win in the Umkhomazi this decade (they also won it with Countless Times in 2010 and Colour Of Courage in 2013), “He has earned a cheque in every race he’s run in (two wins and seven places to date). I nearly didn’t buy him. He came around the corner while I was on the farm and thought this was a nice colt so asked who he was by. The previous King Of Kings we had couldn’t get out of his own way so that put me off. But fortunately my son Sterling was there and said to me ‘are you going to write off every King Of Kings because we happened to have one bad one’. That swung me around and we took him. Sterling then put the syndicate together and they were mainly new owners. Bill Lambert then took a share too.”

Lambert is known as KZN’s “Mr. Racing” and the colt provided him with a first ever feature race winner in a long career of ownership.

King’s Knight, who displayed a fine turn of foot in the Umkhomazi, is currently having a break and is only trotting. He will be brought back slowly next month and will race again in October. Miller believes him to be a 1200-1400m horse and doubts he will see out a mile.

Miller described Executive Power as “by far the nicest horse I have trained for a while.” He fell for him immediately when seeing him at Waterford and described him as having been a “magnificent” specimen. He also liked the “speed on speed” breeding, the sire being Warm White Night and the damsire being Var. Miller believed he would have a “speed machine” on his hands and the colt initially looked like a sprinter too. However, he then began growing and Miller changed his early predictions of what he would be completely.

He said, “I had to just leave him to grow and he ended up all legs. The Warm White Nights seem to be ending up like the Western Winters (Warm White Night, a Gr 1-winning sprinter, is by Western Winter), they are not just speed, they go a bit of ground. I think Executive Power got away with the 1200m because of his class.”

The colt certainly created a fine impression on debut. He not only looked to have a particularly good action but appeared to also have plenty left in the tank at the line.

Miller admitted to having not found it easy to put the syndicate for Executive Power together as most prospective owners were a bit reluctant to get involved in a Warm White Night colt, as the new season sire was an unknown quantity. However, Michel Nairac, the CEO of Gold Circle, and Robert Maingard had just sold Colour Of Courage, whom they part-owned together, so took a share in Executive Power and later two other Mauritians, ML Jean Hardy and EG Hart De Keating, took shares.

Nairac has had some good luck with Miller-trained horses as he also owned a share in the Kahal filly Smangaliso, who won the R1,25 million Emperor’s Palace Ready To Run Cup in 2008.

Miller formed a friendship with the late Richard Sahd of Waterford Stud many years ago and not only bought many of his horses but also trained a few for him. Richard’s son Ben changed the strategy of the farm from quantity to quality and the dividends are now being reaped.

Miller has been travelling down to the Eastern Cape regularly in recent years to visit his son and daughter at Rhodes University and always stops off at Queenstown to visit Ben and have a look at the horses on the Waterford Stud farm.

Miller’s biggest racing success in recent years was when winning the Gr 1 Garden Province Stakes over 1600m on Vodacom Durban July day with the Muhtafal filly Outcome in 2008. He also trained the Jet Master colt Lizarre to third place in the Gr 1 Daily News 2000 in 2010 and this horse, after being sold on, went on to have a successful career in Singapore, winning two Gr 3s and finishing a half-a-length second in a Gr 1. Miller also had a Gr 1 place last season with Sheik’s Brashee, who converted trainer confidence by running third at odds of 33/1 in the Gr 1 Tsogo Sun Sprint.

Miller now has one of Outcome’s daughters in his yard, by Western Winter, and describes her as “magnificent.” Outcome is still owned by Steve Sturlese, who raced her, but she has not had much luck with her foals. She lost one to colic and had a couple of barren seasons, so she hasn’t had a runner yet, but does also have an Oratorio foal at foot.

The Miller yard look to have a lot to look forward to at present and racegoers are sure to be following their fortunes.

By David Thiselton