Writer Don Clippinger shared several pieces he wrote about legendary trainer Bruce Miller with TGSF and gave us permission to share them with you. Enjoy!

This piece was originally published by Thoroughbred Times in the April 25, 1994 issue.

By Don Clippinger, originally published April 25, 1994.

Republished with permission from the author.

For someone who has spent practically his entire life around horses, the past several years have been a rocket-ship ride for F. Bruce Miller, who principally trains steeplechase horses at his farm in Cochranville, Pennsylvania. (Douglas Lees photo)

Miller, 59, trains two-time Eclipse Award champion Lonesome Glory for Kay Jeffords, and he has several horses for Virginia Kraft Payson, who launched his active involvement in steeplechasing just a decade ago. Now, he has one horse for John Peace, an owner best known for his flat runners, including Widener Handicap (G3) victor West by West.

For Miller, the best part--the absolutely best part--is that for the first time both of his children, Blythe and Chip, are working with him at Fox Ferret Farm at the western edge of the Philadelphia region's horse country. "It's always been Blythe; Chip's worked for everybody else but me until this past winter," he said. "They're both here every morning. I hope it goes well. It seems to be. I just wish I had more horses for them. They're both getting prominent in their riding, and Chip's doing quite well himself."

Indeed, Blythe Miller, 25, ranks among the sport's leading riders. Last year, she came within one race of tying James "Chuck" Lawrence for the championship, and she led the earnings list-- with purses exceeding $400,000--after Lonesome Glory scored an 8 1/2-length victory in the last Breeders' Cup Steeplechase. Chip Miller, 23, finished the 1993 season tied for fourth in the standings.

Failed show horses

Bruce Miller came into jump racing through fox hunting and showing, with an interlude in flat racing. He still hunts regularly with Mr. Stewart's Cheshire Foxhounds in Unionville, and he has had some profitable connections with horses who have failed as show horses.

The most notable is Lonesome Glory, who was returned to Mrs. Jeffords after he proved too headstrong for the show ring. Mrs. Jeffords, whose late husband had bred the Transworld gelding, sent Lonesome Glory to Miller, who tamed his talent and trained him to Eclipse Awards in 1992 and 1993. "Lonesome," as Miller calls him, has earned more than $200,000 over fences, won a flat race at Camden, S.C., on April 2, and was on course for a start in the $50,000 Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase at the Middleburg Spring Races in Virginia on April 23.

Miller's most recent failed show horse was John Peace's Grenade, who scored his first victory over fences in a $20,000 maiden race at the Atlanta Steeplechase on April 9. Peace, who has his flat horses with Rusty Arnold, sent Miller the horse after the Breeders' Cup Steeplechase last fall. Peace, retired chairman of the William Esty Company, had sent the Greinton gelding to leading show rider-trainer Michael Matz in hopes of making a show jumper for his granddaughter. "Michael felt he was not going to do that very well," Miller said. "They were in the paddock at the Breeders' Cup Steeplechase at Belmont last fall and saw Lonesome win. He called me that following Monday and asked if I would be interested in taking the horse."

With Chip Miller in the saddle, Grenade laid close to the pace in the Atlanta race, jumped to the lead at the last fence, and held off a late challenge by Brankman to win by a half-length. Miller said Peace, whom he met for the first time at Atlanta, was pleased with the result. "He's been around enough that he knows this doesn't happen all the time," Miller said. "He said he had had this horse for 2 1/2 years, and that was the first good thing he had done."

Bruce Miller grew up in Bucks County, up the Delaware River from Philadelphia. His father had a farm in Doylestown and was huntsman for the Huntingdon Valley Hunt. He began fox- hunting when he was eight or nine. "I have been fox hunting all my life," he said. He assisted his father both before and after military service, then went on his own. "I was making hunters and showing horses on a very small scale, and farming also," he said.

From the 1997 "American Steeplechasing" about the Colonial Cup: Lonesome Glory (left) and Master McGrath jumped the last together to start a wild stretch battle with Rowdy Irishman, who rallied late. The trio finished a half-length apart, with Kay Jeffords' Lonesome Glory getting the Eclipse Award-clinching victory. Rowdy Irishman finished second, with Master McGrath third. ©Tom Haynes/NSA Archives

Switched to flat

Miller moved to Chester County, west of Philadelphia, 28 years ago. "From the fox hunting, I did a lot of point-to-point riding myself when I was in my 20s and 30s," he said. "As the children grew up and got older, I switched over to flat racing, because there was more money in it. I trained a very moderate stable of flat horses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, mostly."

By 1984, he had a stable of approximately 20 flat runners. "It got pretty darned hectic. I had horses at the track and was traveling back and forth. Then ten years ago, Mrs. Payson gave me my first steeplechase horse," Miller said. His first was A. Laguerre, a Judger gelding who won several races in the mid-1980s. 

His best horse before Lonesome Glory was Mrs. Payson's Uptown Swell, a major flat winner who, under Miller's care, won the 1990 Carolina Cup. Last year, he trained her Isaiah for a victory in the U.S. Championship Novice Stakes at Columbus, Georgia. He now has four horses for her.

Miller said that George Strawbridge Jr., owner of Augustin Stables and the National Steeplechase Association's chairman emeritus, also sent him some horses in the early years. Miller's 17-acre farm is adjacent to Strawbridge's much larger property, where the trainer gallops and works his horses. Blythe Miller also grew up with Strawbridge's stepdaughter, trainer Sanna Neilson.

As Miller began to train more steeplechase horses, his daughter's riding career was blossoming. In 1991, Blythe Miller rode Cabral to victories in the My Lady's Manor and the Grand National, first two legs of the Maryland timber series. 

A heavy schedule

No one has ever doubted Blythe Miller's capacity for work, however. After a morning at Fox Ferret, she now heads to leading trainer Jonathan Sheppard's stable, where she exercises horses in the afternoon. She worked for Sheppard at Camden over the winter, and probably will go to Saratoga this summer for the sport's leading trainer. Sheppard put Blythe Miller, now a professional, on many of his horses, and she thus is a threat to become steeplechasing's first female champion rider - after becoming the first woman ever to ride a Breeders' Cup race winner.

"It's very gratifying. She's worked very hard and deserves every bit of her success. I just worry a little bit about her getting hurt," her father said. "Both she and Chip are pretty experienced riders now, and they can anticipate what's happening. Blythe has always been very aware of things around her, so that has helped a bit. The experience helps them a bit more, and carries them through."

Certainly, the Breeders' Cup win last year was the richest race Miller and his daughter had ever won. But he does not regard it as their leading accomplishment as a team. Their most significant victory was Lonesome Glory's 1992 victory in the Chris Coley Hurdle at England's Cheltenham Race Course, where Blythe Miller used every bit of her growing skills to get Lonesome Glory to the finish in time. The victory assured Lonesome Glory, 1992's leading novice steeplechaser, an Eclipse Award as the year's leading performer over fences. 

"That race was far more difficult than the Breeders' Cup, and more meaningful because of all the details involved in getting the horse ready and winning that race in that country on their conditions, giving weight away," Miller said. "It was a much bigger effort on my part, and I think Blythe feels the same way. I think that was a very special thing for her."

Don Clippinger, former editor of the Thoroughbred Record, became interested in horse racing by reading novels of former steeplechase jockey Dick Francis.

On April 4, 1993, Lonesome Glory won the 1 3/4 miles Open Flat race at the Warrenton Pt. to Pt. races at Airlie, postponed from March due to snow. Left to right: Hilary Scheer Gerhardt, Bruce Miller and Blythe Miller.

©Douglas Lees