Erv Miller looks back at his nearly half century in the business
by Murray Brown
Erv Miller is 59. He has been working with horses since he was two weeks out of the 8th grade. Miller’s dad Marvin was a farmer. His family grew crops and used work horses to sustain life on their Amish farm. While Erv was growing up Marvin Miller began working with drywall installation. Erv said when he was probably no more than 5 or 6 years old, stopping by the county fairs with his dad and seeing the racehorses there, he thought to himself, “People race horses for a living? That sure looks like fun.”
Erv’s first job with harness horses was with noted Illinois horseman John Cisna at his Lincoln Land Farm. “I started the way most youngsters did back then, cleaning stalls and rubbing horses,” Erv said. “I graduated to training and occasionally driving, all in Illinois.”
Erv won his first race at the age of 16.
“But I soon decided that I wasn’t meant to be a driver, I preferred and was better at training,” he said, adding with a laugh, “I’d leave the driving to the professional drivers, then if something goes wrong, I can always blame the driver.”
It is now going on a half century since he first began.
You’ve just passed the 7,000 mark in wins and your horses have earned a staggering $116,374,367 since you first began training. You’ve had a lot of very good horses. Were there any that just stood out?
“I’ve certainly had a good many good horses. Just talking off the top of my head, they would include Loyal Opposition [$2,649,934], Lis Mara [$2,141,661], Classic Photo [$1,447,604], and Manofmanymissions [$1,215,000]. It would be hard for me to pick one that was the best. We also had two very good 2-year-old trotters in Muscle Mass and Swan For All who unfortunately did not come back as well as we hoped for at 3, but they have turned out to be exceptional sires in Ontario and Indiana.
“I can tell you the one that was my favorite, though. I had this Illinois bred filly named Incredible Tillie and she was just that — incredible. We were racing her at Springfield as a 2-year-old. I thought we had a good shot to get some money, maybe if things went our way we could get lucky and win. Tony Morgan had this filly that Lloyd Arnold had just bought for a whole lot of money named Bootsy. Bootsy stung both of us parking Incredible Tillie to the quarter, in get this, :24.4! If another 2-year-old has ever gone that fast a quarter and lived to tell about it, I don’t know who it might be. They went to the half in :53.2 and they came at her. I thought that was it, she was done, but she shrugged them all off and won by 3½ lengths in 1.51.4, which was darn fast for a 2-year-old in 1999. She went on to earn $916,024 and took a record of 1.49.2. She was just fair as a broodmare though. She ended up being exported to Australia. I’ve had a lot of very good horses, but she was the only one who sent chills up my spine.”
Prior to just a few years ago, you were headquartered in Pennsylvania and raced mostly there and in the East. Now it seems as though you’ve returned to your roots, the Midwest.
“In the last few years, purses and racing opportunities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York were down. At the same time there was somewhat of a renaissance in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and to a far lesser extent, Illinois. I had previously sent a division of our stable to my son in law Atlee Bender in Indiana. He did well and we grew out there. As time passed, we realized that that part of the country favored our fortune more than the East did. I don’t believe we are alone in doing this. More and more horsemen are racing in the Midwest, either with some of their horses, or have moved or are planning to move entirely.”
Do you think this is because of what is perceived as the great Kentucky program?
“To some degree it is. But in some areas, the so-called great Kentucky program isn’t near as great as it is made out to be. Sure, if you have the stakes horses and they are competitive in the various classes you can race there and make some good money. However, if you have some overnight horses in your stable, getting them raced can and often does present a problem. We have had horses that were Kentucky-bred, raised in Kentucky, purchased at a sale in Kentucky, who we have been unable to get raced because we, or their owners, do not fit the residency requirements written by the race offices. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful program. The money being offered is far more than what we previously had. But it’s not perfect, nor is it the panacea that it is sometimes portrayed as being. I think it could use some tweaking to help it along, so that the customers of Kentucky horses are able to race their horses with some degree of frequency.”
As we speak, you are down in Florida at your normal winter home, the Southern Oaks Training Center in Sorrento, FL, less than an hour north of Orlando. How is the Erv Miller Stable presently constituted?
“We’ve been here since Brian Pinske bought the property from the Simpson family in I think it was 1998. I had been training at Spring Garden Ranch when Brian asked me if I would come down and train here. The training center suited all our needs. It has a wonderful clay track with lots of paddocks for the horses. I accepted Brian’s offer and we have been here ever since.
“As we have had for several years now, we have somewhere in the area of a hundred horses in training, the majority of those here in Florida are coming 2- and 3-year-olds. For years I’ve been threatening to cut down, but mostly because of my son in law Atlee Bender and my daughter Hannah’s, in addition to my son Marcus’ growing involvement with the stable, I’ve found myself unable to. They have all been an incredible blessing. Hannah handles most of the paperwork and she and Atlee pretty much run the stable when we are up north and racing. Marcus helps out with the training and does a lot of the driving.
I’m down here with the babies until we ship north, usually around mid-April. Right now, we have 65 coming 2-year-olds in training, 40 or so of which are Indiana-breds.
“Our spring and summer home for the stable is the Indiana State Fairgrounds which has a wonderful track and is a very convenient ship, not only to Hoosier Park, but to most of the tracks in the Midwest. We do concentrate on Indiana racing though. The program there is a wonderful one where we can race regularly and hopefully earn enough money to pay our way.”
You mentioned Hannah and Atlee. They are not the only family members who are involved in harness racing.
“Far from it. Our son Marcus has evolved into one of the leading drivers on the Midwestern circuit. I believe his move from the east has done wonders for both his confidence and his maturity. While racing out East, mostly at Pocono Downs, the competition was pretty stiff, not only with the regulars, but also with the not infrequent visits by the top Grand Circuit drivers. He was young and just starting out. Getting the better drives wasn’t easy. Since moving west, he not only is getting more drives, but his confidence and his driving also have improved markedly. He is a Godsend to our stable, especially when we start racing our younger horses. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the need for catch drivers and realize how good the very best of them are, but the natural tendency with most of them is to test your horse and use it to get all they can get. With Marcus, he has the talent that most of the better drivers have, but he also knows the horses we put him down on. He can race them to the best of their ability, but he will also do his best to protect them, realizing that they hopefully have a big future ahead.”
Let’s finish in speaking of what you refer to as your wife Heidi’s and your greatest blessings, your three grandchildren.
“They are indeed that. Hannah and Atlee have Linden Rae a beautiful and wonderful daughter. Marcus and Sara are the parents of Magnus Drew and Ace Clark our two grandsons. Until you have them, you perhaps fail to realize how much of a blessing grandchildren are.”
