AFTER notching a win and a second at Lord's Raceway within the space of three days this week, Nigel Milne says Our Doreen Days has earned a few days of well-earned rest.
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The Goornong trainer-driver revealed it had not always been the plan to back the six-year-old gelding up over consecutive meetings, but he now has no regrets.
"(Wife) Danielle does all the nominating and she nominated for that Monday race almost as a late nom because they were short of numbers, but we had already been accepted for the Wednesday as well," Milne said.
"So, we ended up with two runs.
"On paper, it might not have looked like a good idea. On the Monday night I was trying a bit hard ... I thought we might get that win, but it didn't come to fruition.
"I've never backed a horse up before, especially off a day's rest, so I really didn't know what was going to happen.
"But amazingly the horse has presented fresh and confident and it all panned out perfectly with a couple of scratchings and a small field and not getting too far back.
"He is in a really good routine at the moment and he is really easy to train."
Punters were obviously confident the Shadow Play gelding was up to the task in backing up, sending the Milne-trained pacer out as a $1.90 favourite on Wednesday.
He duly repaid their confidence.
Our Doreen Days, who recovered from a near-fatal tendon injury in 2018 to resume his racing career midway through last year, has gone on to add three wins from 27 starts to his former tally of one from 14 for the Milne family.
His record through the regional racing period reads a consistent two wins, four seconds and two thirds from 10 starts for prize earnings of $15,420.
With such a solid formline, it's no surprise to find Milne singing the praises of the concept and even advocating for its retention in some shape and form.
"You do really appreciate the concept and the fact you are only going down the road to race. He (Our Doreen Days) knows the track well at Bendigo and he gets around it well, it's worked out perfectly," he said.
"He's been a real gem for our family.
"I'd certainly like it if it (regional racing) continued.
"To be perfectly honest, most of the people you talk to in the industry, they see a real - not a need - but an avenue to continue regional racing.
"There's been some suggestion of maybe having it just through the winter months.
"When you are trying to keep people in the game, it's giving people an opportunity to earn a bit of money and keep their horses going.
"You get a horse like this fellow, who wasn't overly competitive and now all of a sudden he's got that lease on life again.
"All credit to Harness Racing Victoria for keeping us racing, they've been unbelievable."
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