Peter Miller to start a horse Sunday at Churchill, his first runner since November
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Peter Miller, who announced last fall to considerable fanfare that he was taking a hiatus from training, will have his first starter in six months when a 3-year-old gelding named Respect the Code runs under his name in the eighth race Sunday at Churchill Downs.
Miller said via text message early Friday from California that he is gearing up his stable for the upcoming Los Alamitos and Del Mar meets on his home circuit. He said Respect the Code, owned by Gary Barber, is his only horse in Kentucky.
Miller, 55, has won 1,338 races in a stop-and-start training career dating to the late 1980s while amassing stable earnings of nearly $70 million. He has not had a starter since Nov. 28, closing day of the 2021 Del Mar fall meet.
Miller, a nine-time leading trainer at Del Mar and a winner of five Breeders’ Cup events, issued a press release in mid-November announcing his intentions to step aside “to spend more time with his family, focus on overall health and wellness, and pursue other interests.” Based primarily at the San Luis Rey Downs training center, he turned over most of his stable to his longtime assistant Ruben Alvarado.
The announcement came shortly after an unraced maiden trained by Miller died at San Luis Rey, marking the sixth death of a horse in his care in less than a year. Public pressure mounted for officials at 1/ST, which owns San Luis Rey and Santa Anita, to act on those fatalities, much as had been done with the banishment of Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer for a similar number of equine deaths.
Los Alamitos runs June 25-July 10 and Del Mar starts July 22.
“I won’t run at Santa Anita this year,” Miller said Friday.