by Ellen Harvey, Harness Racing Communications

East Rutherford, NJ — Spirit To Win (Brett Miller) upset the field at 48-1 odds to win the $187,000 Delvin Miller Memorial for 3-year-old filly trotters on Saturday (July 18) at The Meadowlands in a career mark of 1:52 by a nose over Mission Brief.

Spirit To Win is trained by Dustin Jones and owned by Frederick Hertrich III and Noblock Racing Stable.

Lisa photo

Spirit To Win (No. 5) was a narrow winner in the Delvin Miller Memorial.

Livininthefastlane (Andy Miller) was first to the lead before being overtaken at the :28.3 quarter by Mission Brief who took the lead to the :57 half and on to the 1:25.2 three- quarters.

It was at that point that Andy Miller pulled the right line on Livininthefastlane and she briefly got a nose in front of Mission Brief before yielding when they hit the stretch. While those two were battling up front, Spirit To Win slid up the cones in to third and angled out to take a shot at those two. She trotted straight past them for the win.

Mission Brief, wearing trotting hobbles for the first time in a purse race, was second and Livininthefastlane was third.

“I drove her last start at Chester and Chester is kind of a tough track,” said winning driver Brett Miller. “She wasn’t getting over the track very well and honestly, for her to finish third, to get beat all the further she did last week, she raced really good. Actually tonight, top of stretch, she had a lot of trot. I didn’t know if we’d have time to get there but this is a serious filly. Top of the stretch, I said, ‘We’ve got a shot to be third here,’ and halfway down the stretch I said, ‘we’ve got a chance to win here.’ I popped her (ear) plugs and Dustin told me this was the first time with the ear plugs and when I popped them, she really took off.”

“We thought she was (a top filly) last year,” said trainer Dustin Jones. “But she ended up cracking a pastern so we had to stop with her, but we were really high on her last year. Chris (Christoforou) did a great job driving her as a 2-year-old and qualifying her for us this year.

“We wanted to start her at Mohawk (before this race) and give her an overnight (but the race was moved). We had two sire stakes at Chester and Pocono. I trained her at the farm a mile in (1):56 last Saturday.

“When you know the filly, I thought she might be third or fourth in there. Then when she got away fourth behind the best horses in there, I thought she was in a good spot.”