By Michael Guerin
Champion trainer Mark Purdon wasn’t holding back in his praise for Millwood Nike when the superstar filly remained unbeaten at Addington on Friday.
Our best juvenile filly cemented that claim by overcoming a second line draw to smash her rivals in the $138,000 Dunstan Feeds Sires’ Stakes Fillies Final.
That made it seven wins from as many starts and the hot tempo played into her hands as her strength became telling factor in the Group 1.
Purdon says that strength, and just about everything else about Millwood Nike, makes her as good as any juvenile filly he and his All Stars partners have trained.
“We have had some very good ones of course but at this stage of her career she would be as good as any of them,” he offered.
“She has it all. She is strong, very fast and has a great will to win.
“What she did today was very, very impressive.”
Purdon has been associated with great juvenile fillies his whole career dating back to driving ones like Scuse Me in the early 1990s right through to Amazing Dream and True Fantasy in the last two years.
His greatest ever female pacer Adore Me actually didn’t race at two so can’t be rated on her juvenile ability but it is hard to make an argument any of the other freshman fillies have been any better than Millwood Nike.
She will now head to the Ace Of Diamonds at the new Grand Prix meeting at Addington on December 4 before she faces a fast turnaround to start her three-year-old season.
While juvenile fillies used to, on the whole, finish their season at the Jewels in June and have no major Group 1 target until Christmas, Millwood Nike won’t be able to get to the paddock until mid December and will need to be turned around a lot quicker for the first three years features early in the New Year.
“I think she is the type of filly who will handle that if we go down that path,” says Purdon.
Millwood Nike rated 1:54.7 for the 1980m and while all the honours were with there was plenty of courage from leader Kahlua Flybye, who true to co-trainer Steve Telfer’s words before the race held the lead and ran them hard.
She stuck on bravely for second but the shock of the race was third favourite Advance Party, who raced 100m below her best and was beaten at the 500m after trailing so clearly wasn’t right.
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