Miami Valley: Brett Miller reaches 8,000 career wins milestone

"Super" Brett Miller picked a great time to score his 8,000th career victory on Friday night (Feb. 22) at Miami Valley Raceway. The 45-year-old purple and white clad pilot captured the $25,000 championship final of the inaugural Howard Beissinger Memorial Medley in the track’s first-ever added distance 1-1/4 mile race.

Miller guided Double A Goldrush to the 2:27 4/5 triumph in gate-to-wire fashion over fast-closing No Whip Chip (Chris Page) and Nothinbutanallstar (LeWayne Miller). Fractions for the first mile of the endurance test were 29 1/5, 1:00, 1:29 3/5 and 1:58 1/5. The winner swept through all three legs of the Beissinger Medley, notching a 1:11 1/5 score in the first leg - a 5/8th mile dash - and returning with a 1:54 2/5 tally at the conventional mile distance in the second leg before tacking on the lucrative added distance championship.

Ross Leonard trains the 5-year-old son of Elegant Man for Michael and Laura Lee and their partner Terry Leonard. The victory was Double A Goldrush’s 16th from just 64 lifetime starts and pushed him past the $200,000 earnings plateau.

“I didn’t know exactly how to train him for these different distances,” laughed Leonard, “so I didn’t do anything much different than his usual routine. It worked out pretty well! We’ll probably give him a week off and then race him at Miami Valley until the end of the meet.”

“He thought about pulling up for a moment just past the mile mark,” Miller chimed in. “I guess he thought he’d done enough work for the night, but he got right back to business when I chirped to him.”

Miller, the son of Del S. Miller and cousin of Hall Of Famer David Miller, began his racing career in Ohio at age 19 in 1992 - winning one race in 31 tries, good for $3,258 in earnings. It wasn’t long afterwards that he hooked up with the late trainer John Lee at Northfield Park and the duo began winning races at an alarming rate. For a period of seven years before Miller left for the Meadowlands in 2007, Brett averaged over 500 wins a year with purse earnings over $2 million in each of them. His lifetime purse earnings are approaching $85,000,000.

“John Lee gave me my first big break,” said Brett. “ I might not be here today if not for the trust he placed in me. I think about John and the good times we had at Northfield often. He was a great guy and great trainer. I miss him.”

While his annual purse earnings more than doubled during his decade on the east coast, Miller kept an eye on his Buckeye roots and the renaissance taking place in terms of increased purses. Yearning to return “home,” Brett decided the timing was right when the calendar turned to 2019, and he couldn’t be happier with that decision.

“I’m happy to be home and winning races at this clip again (65 already in 2019, good for almost $700,000 in purses)," he remarked.

--press release (Miami Valley)--