3 minute read

What a season Mitch Miller is having in the cart.

The young reinsman is just a few wins away from cracking the $1mil in prizemoney for the first time and has notched impressive thirds in two of the biggest races on the WA calendar, the WA Pacing Cup with Minstrel and the WA Derby with I'm The Black Flash.

He has driven 69 winners this season, including victories in the Easter Cup and The Nullarbor Consolation with Hector in April for his boss and mentor Kim Prentice.

Miller drove 81 winners of $950,000 in stakes in 2022.

He said the decision to join the Prentice stable a couple of years ago had paved the way for his improved results.

"To win a feature race for Kim was a great moment because he's been so good to me in my time working with him," Miller said.

"The trust and faith that he shows in me has really helped my confidence. It has allowed me to trust my own judgement.

"So I don't think it's any surprise my last two years have been my personal best."

Miller, 28, started out helping his hobby trainer dad Daryl with a small stable of pacers in country WA.

"To think where I started from, just doing it for fun to possibly cracking $1mil makes me proud of how far I've come," he said.

"The recent opportunities I've had, especially in the Group 1s has been great. It's always a goal just to get a drive in them, let alone to run third in both. It was special.

"I started in the Wheatbelt and moved to Cookernup when I was 10.

"Never did pony trots because dad had me driving the race horses by then."

Miller said he grew up driving bush horses and it took him a while to get the confidence to match it with his city rivals.

"Early in the career, I was driving an odds-on favourite for the Bonds. I was sitting one out, one back and cruising but I didn't pull out and the horse was boxed in and got beat," he said.

"Greg asked me why I didn't make a run. I said I had never driven a horse that was good enough to pull three-wide before."

Miller certainly has learnt how to handle a good horse but he doesn't think the stakes milestone will come next week.

He has two drives at Pinjarra on Monday and three drives at Gloucester Park Tuesday.

"Crowd Control looks the only winning chance from Monday and Tuesday," he said.

And what of the future for the in-form driver.

"I never really wanted to train but recently I've learnt to push myself to do things outside my comfort zone and I wouldn't mind having a couple of my own."