A blank canvas turns into a potential Derby masterpiece in waiting for Mirfin

Delve into the career of Dean Mirfin, and you will understand why there is much more than a curiosity angle to Michelangelo’s right to be part of the Queensland Derby conversation.

Mirfin finds himself with a Derby runner in a three-year-old that was given his chance in the Group 1 Champagne Stakes last season but ultimately exited champion trainer Chris Waller’s stable with only a provincial win against his name.

On face value, Michelangelo seemed to be on racing’s road to nowhere – or, in a best-case scenario, plying his trade around the racetracks of country NSW.

Michelangelo had one start at Wagga Wagga before Mirfin took over as trainer, continuing a long-standing association with the Muollo family’s lesser lights.

The result has been middle-distance wins at Bathurst and Hawkesbury and a Queensland Derby bid that Mirfin insists is not as fanciful as it might seem despite his early reservations.

“I think he’s been in the stables for about six weeks, so when he arrived I thought there was a nice race at Bathurst that he could win,” Mirfin told The Straight.

“That was about as far as my ambitions went at the time.

“I won’t take all the credit if he wins, but I’ll certainly take the money if it ends that way.”

Mirfin trains a dozen horses but his grassroots approach to racing belies a back story that promises to serve him well at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

As a young trackwork rider, Mirfin worked for the best with stints at Leilani Lodge under Bart Cummings and at Tulloch Lodge for TJ Smith.

He got to be around the good horses, none better than Red Anchor, whom Smith trained to win the Caulfield Guineas, Cox Plate and Victoria Derby during a 1984 Melbourne spring that earned the colt Australian Horse of the Year honours.

“I was only riding those horses in slow work. Jockeys were riding them in their main gallops, but I got on the back of some nice horses,” he said.

“Red Anchor was probably the best one I’ve ridden and I did a bit of travelling with Bart’s horses to Queensland.

“It was a good experience but I probably didn’t absorb it as much as I should have. I was young and having fun in life as well. But it was good being there.”

Mirfin moved away from the industry to pursue a career in hospitality but he says that in reality, racing never left him and he returned in 2012 to open stables at Bathurst.

“I got out of racing for 25 years or so, but I think I always wanted to go back,” he said.

“Strangely enough, even when I wasn’t in racing for all those years … you’d have some dream, it would be about bloody horse racing. So it’s something that gets into your blood.”

“I always wanted to start training horses, and I started mucking around with them about 14 years ago, just with a couple, and they sort of built up.

“And I’m quite happy to play around on country tracks too. I enjoy country racing. It’s a bit laid back, and the vibe is good, and you know everybody.”

The Muollo family have been central to that.

“At one point, I was asked to train a horse for them a good few years ago, and the horse did quite well,” Mirfin said.

“There’s been a steady flow of horses ever since.”

It was their horse, Tokyo Run, who took him to a Derby before, in Melbourne, a trip that felt like a rarity rather than a turning point.

“You don’t get many opportunities to do that when you’re training with a dozen horses in the country,” he said.

“It was probably a bit ambitious but I took it with both hands.”

Mirfin says Michelangelo, a son of Trapeze Artist who is a younger sibling to Godolphin mare Pinito, a Group 3 winner at Doomben last week, has enough in his favour to deserve more than a passing consideration.

He is sure the horse will stay the 2400m and he knows a rain-affected track won’t be a negative. In Nash Rawiller, Mirfin says the jockey booking is a positive.

“It’s a dream that’s not impossible,” he said.