Daisycutter Handicap win helps Miller to share trainer lead after the first week of Del Mar

After the first week of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club summer meet, Peter Miller shared the trainer lead with three wins.

Miller, Richard Baltas and Doug O’Neill each had three wins during the races between July 17 and July 21. Miller had the fewest starts among those three, sending eight horses to the gate and adding two second-place finishes and one third-place result to his victories.

“We’re happy with the start, and hopefully we can keep it up,” Miller said.

Del Mar had ten races on Opening Day, and Miller’s horses finished first and second in the tenth race, July 17. Give Me the Lute had a winning time of 1:35.57 in the one-mile turf race for California-bred horses three years old and upward who had not previously won a race and finished 2 1/4 lengths ahead of Unusually Handsome, who finished a neck in front of third-place Play Money.

“It was great,” Miller said of his horses finishing first and second in the same race on Opening Day.

Give Me the Lute, a gelding foaled in February 2016, had finished second in his previous race June 15, at Santa Anita Park. The July 17 race was his fourth start. Unusually Handsome, a gelding foaled in March 2016, also had three previous races.

“I thought they both had a big chance, so I wasn’t surprised,” Miller said of his horses finishing in the top two positions.

The Daisycutter Handicap stakes race for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up took place, July 20. Miller trained Painting Corners, a 5-year-old mare foaled in Florida. Painting Corners finished the five-furlong turf race in 56.21 seconds and beat second-place S Y Sky by three-quarters of a length.

“It was great. Painting Corners is a really nice filly. She always tries, has a big heart,” Miller said.

The Daisycutter Handicap was the second career stakes win and seventh overall victory for Painting Corners, who has competed in 20 races during her career.

Miller’s other victory during the first week of the meet was in the first race July 19. El Tigre Terrible, a two-year-old gelding foaled in California, won the 5 1/2-furlong dirt race by a length over second-place Howbeit and had a winning time of 1:05.65. The race was the second career start for El Tigre Terrible, who finished fifth, May 17, at Santa Anita.