By Peter Moore at Newbury Saturday 19th July 2025
Super Sprint specialist Rod Millman struck once again to take the honours in the Weatherby’s Super Sprint at Newbury on Saturday.
West country trainer Millman had already won the race twice before and made it three after Anthelia held of the challenge of hot favorite Havana Hurricane to win by a short head under Lewis Edmunds.
Purchased for just £6,000 as a yearling, the Supremacy filly came with a late run to pip the favorite and give the syndicate of Middleham Park Racing another afternoon they won’t forget in a hurry.
Following a nervous wait to hear the outcome of the result, Millman was able to celebrate with his family close by and hailed Anthelia’s success as a “great advert for racing and for sport”.
He said: “I was very lucky to get her. You keep seeing all the millions of pounds that are getting spent on horses, but you can still do it with a nice horse.
“I spend a lot of time at the sales watching horses walk around. There are a lot of horses I bid on who don’t make too much money, but I don’t try to buy cheap horses, I try to buy nice horses cheaply. She’s head and shoulders above what we’ve had in the past.”
Anthelia provided the trainer with a third win in the race after the successes of Lord Kintyre – who Millman admits saved his training career – and Bettys Hope in 1997 and 2019 respectively.
He said: “It’s a wonderful race to be involved in for any trainer, but especially the smaller trainer. It kept me in business many years ago when I was struggling and after that people sent me horses.”
Middleham Park wasn’t the only syndicate celebrating after the Hot To Trot syndicate made it 100 winners since they first started in racing after Rage Of Bamby caused a major upset in the Group 3 Hackwood Stakes at 33-1.
Set up in 2012, the group had every reason to celebrate after the Eve Johnson Houghton-trained five-year-old scooped just over £48,000 after storming through to win by one and three quarter lengths.
Racing manager Sam Hoskins said: “We’ll look at the Sprint Cup at Haydock now. She’s got nothing to lose as she’ll go off to stud at the end of the year. We’ll enjoy today because she’s won a Group race, but it just shows that you have to have a go.”
Rage Of Bamby had beaten just five rivals in three starts before her Group 3 success this season, and Hoskins added: “I can’t believe it; I didn’t think it was going to happen.
“I’m so pleased for all of the members because a lot of them have been involved for a long time. It was crazy to come here because it was like a Group 1 race and we didn’t think it was possible.”
An emotional Faye Bramley could hardly hide her emotions in the winners enclosure after seeing her beloved Almuhit score again at Newbury.
Despite a brutal 30-minute downpour of rain before and after the race, the trainer – who is based at Sir AP McCoy’s pre-training yard in Lambourn – could not contain her delight after the six-year-old landed a second successive course win.
I’m so proud of him,” she said. “We just love him, he’s like the yard pet. If we’d have run into a place then we’d have been over the moon, but we didn’t expect this.
“I just can’t believe it. He’s improved so much and although the wind operation made a difference, switching from hurdles back to the Flat seems to have freshened him up.
“We’ve started to train him a bit harder at home and he’s just such a hardy horse. He loves his work and it makes my job easier.”
Royal Dubai made it a winning run for his new yard after scoring in the opening race of the day, the Class 1 Listed Race BetVictor Steventon Stakes.
Having recently moved from Marco Botti’s yard to Owen Burrow’s, the five-year-old took the lead half a furlong from home to go on and win by a length.
A welcome rare visitor to the Berkshire track, Sir Mark Prescott saddled his first two-year-old winner of the season after Consent drew clear of Wujjood to land the Class 2 Darley EBF Fillies Novice Stakes.
Having her first start for 294 days and moving up in trip saw an encouraging run, with more to come this year.
Egoli defied a 7lb penalty to take the 6f novice stakes under Rossa Ryan for Ralph Beckett after making every yard.
Trainer Oliver Cole sent out his first runner as a solo trainer, which was a successful one after Bela Sonata scored in the finale by three quarters of a length from Maybe Not.