Swayzee with Grimson and Cam Hart - HRNZ/Race Images NZ
RAMPAGING Menangle trainer Jason Grimson could have half the field in next month’s $1 million Miracle Mile.
Grimson’s powerhouse line-up of open-class pacers will see him have at least five runners across the four qualifying races for Australasia’s premier speed test, starting with Rakero Rocket in Friday night’s $100,000 Group 2 Newcastle Mile.
His Hunter Cup winner Swayzee, Group 1-winning mare Captains Mistress, star speedster Hi Manameisjeff and exciting recent stable addition Chase A Dream are also being set for the Miracle Mile.
Captains Mistress will get a golden ticket into the Miracle Mile if she wins Saturday week’s $250,000 Group 1 Chariots Of Fire at Menangle. She is $1.60 in pre-post markets, but has to qualify for the Chariots with a top three finish in Saturday night’s Paleface Adios.
Swayzee, who upstaged Australasia’s best pacers to win the Hunter Cup last Saturday week, will be joined by Hi Manameisjeff and Chase A Dream in Saturday week’s qualifying sprints at Menangle.
“I’ve gone from eight in work to 26 horses now. I want these good horses, I chase them, I want to win all the big races,” Grimson said.
Rakero Rocket has been a revelation since joining Grimson’s stable with two wins and a second from his three starts. Two starts back he paced a scorching 1min47.3sec mile, just 0.4sec outside the Australasian record.
But it’s former star Kiwi mare Captains Mistress who most excites Grimson. She has won all four starts in his care by an aggregate of almost 80m.
Last start she thrashed Australia’s best mares by 25m in the Group 1 Queen of the Pacific at Melton on the same night Swayzee won the Hunter Cup.
“I’ve got a great bunch of horses at the moment, but Captains Mistress is the best of them,” Grimson said.
Let that sink in, especially considering Swayzee has won 33 races, including two Hunter Cups and two NZ Cups, and banked almost $2.5 million.
Grimson said Swayzee had come through his successful Hunter Cup title defence in great style.
“He’s in such a great place at the moment,” he said. “The day after the (Hunter) Cup, when I was loading my horses into the float to go back to Sydney and it took me 25 minutes to catch Swayzee in his paddock.”
Swayzee finished a luckless fourth in last year’s Miracle Mile.
Grimson is also excited about former enigmatic Kiwi pacer Chase A Dream, who looked sharp beating an average field at his first start for the stable at Melton last Saturday week.
“I’d only had him for just over a week. We’ll both learn a lot from that race and he’ll just keep improving. I like him,” he said.
Chase A Dream ran some great races in top company for champion Kiwi trainer Mark Purdon before losing form.
“I’ve wanted him for a while. I asked Mark (Purdon) about a year ago and he said no, but I asked again and got him,” Grimson said.
