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Peter Miller, right, with St. Joe Bay (Kent Desormeaux up) in the winner’s circle after winning the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes at Santa Anita Park on February 4, 2017
TRAINER OF THE QUARTER
PET ER MIL L E R
The TRM Trainer of the Quarter has been won by Peter Miller. Miller and his team will receive a selection of products from the internationally acclaimed range of TRM supplements, as well as a bottle of fine Irish whisky. Bill Heller harlie Whittingham would be mighty proud. Peter Miller, the 50-year-old trainer who was the runaway winner of the Santa Anita spring meeting that concluded in July, is the same kid Whittingham hired as a groom the day after Miller graduated from Beverly Hills High School.
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Eclipse Sportswire “I think he would be proud,” Miller said on July 12th. “That makes me just smile, thinking about Charlie. He was my idol and my boss. I learned a lot, not just about horses, but about life. I learned about discipline, hard work, organization. Charlie was one of the hardest workers around. People don’t think about that. It doesn’t
just magically happen. You have to put the hours in. He was a drill sergeant. You better be there at four o’clock, have your work done, and come back every afternoon.” Miller’s latest title, one he captured with 36 victories – 11 more than Phil D’Amato and Richard Baltas tied in second – was his eighth Southern California training title. Among those 36 wins was Stormy Liberal’s score in the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes. Overall, Miller ranks 16th nationally, with more than $3.3 million in earnings through mid-July. Miller was born in Santa Monica, grew up in Beverly Hills, and wanted to be a jockey. His family owned horses, racing as Winning Ways Stable. When Miller was 10, he went to a jockey school. He spent every subsequent summer at the track, walking hots for Joe Manzi, Mike Mitchell, and Hal King. When he was 14, he was told by a doctor that he would probably be too heavy to become a jockey, so Miller refocused and set a new goal: becoming a trainer. At 4:30 a.m. the morning after he graduated from high school in 1984,