Remembering Equestrian Icon F. Bruce Miller

Photos by Jim Graham

F. Bruce Miller was a giant in the world of steeplechase and foxhunts.

From the very moment I came to Cheshire Country, I noticed two people at the front of the pack: Nancy Penn Smith Hannum and F. Bruce Miller. Hannum left us at the end of the 2010 season. Miller, our field master for decades, passed away at the end of this season on April 10. He was 89.

Miller was a legendary figure in equestrian circles, not only in the Brandywine Valley but also in the steeplechase world. He trained Lonesome Glory, who won the title of American Champion Steeplechase Horse on a record five occasions. In a racing career that lasted from 1991 to 1999, Lonesome Glory ran 42 times and won 23 races, including many of America’s most important steeplechases. There was one win at the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase, two at the Carolina Cup and three at the Colonial.

Lonesome Glory also became one of the few American-trained horses to compete successfully in the United Kingdom, winning races in 1992 and 1995. A 1992 win in a novice race at Cheltenham gave Miller the distinction of being the first American trainer to take a British National Hunt event. Lonesome Glory became the first American steeplechaser to win more than $1 million in prize money.

Throughout a training career that spanned six decades, Miller amassed 561 races on the flat and over jumps, earning more than $10 million.

Miller in action in 2008.

Throughout a training career that spanned six decades, Miller amassed 561 races on the flat and over jumps, earning more than $10 million. “He never proclaimed to be an expert on much, but in racing and foxhunting, you never questioned him,” says his son-in-law, Joe Davies.

“He never proclaimed to be an expert on much, but in racing and foxhunting, you never questioned him.”
—Joe Davies

Katherine Neilson, who followed Miller at Cheshire and is also training horses over jumps and timber, has lauded him for his “unwavering commitment to everything he did.” Patti Miller, another member of Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds, worked for Miller and often rode right behind him in the hunt field. “Bruce took us fearlessly into the country,” she says. “He went where the hounds went, and if that meant heaving to a jump a four- or five-foot post-and-rail fence, so be it. You followed because you knew he was leading you in the right way.”

In The Hunt’s Spring 2023 issue, Russell B. Jones Jr. noted: “Nobody knew the country better, and Bruce was a fearless, beautiful rider. He had an intuitive sense of which way a fox would run, so he had people in the right places 98% of the time.”

Jim Graham