Six-time Olympic medalist Bode Miller is embarking on an unconventional journey into the world of horse racing, aiming to leverage his unique skill set forged during a decorated career in ski racing. This intriguing new venture sees Miller applying a distinctive approach to training Thoroughbreds, a strategy he believes can significantly impact the industry.
Miller acquired a barn at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Maryland, with the intention of revolutionizing Thoroughbred training. While initial details were sparse, a recent interview with Horse Racing Radio Network provided deeper insight into his vision, highlighting perceived opportunities within the sport and drawing parallels to his experiences as an elite ski racer.
“Most people… don’t get into ski racing to make a bunch of money. … It’s not a mainstream American sport where you get the million dollar contracts. It’s an amateur sport. It’s based around the Olympics. We do it for that reason alone,” Miller explained. “And I think for me having that excitement fill the whole first half, or hopefully a third, of my life – I wanted to fill that gap as I got out of ski racing. The only thing that I would say steered me directly besides my love for the sport of horse racing is the set of skills that I developed as a ski racer just really tend to correspond overly with horse racing compared to what you would think.”
A cornerstone of Miller’s innovative strategy involves adapting the intricate penalty and points system used in ski racing. He intends to apply this methodology to rank horses, thereby enabling more informed decisions regarding race entries and overall management.
“As a young kid … you learn this weird skill set of comparing races. And based on all these factors, these calculations, and numbers, you have to assess the quality of the racer who won, how fast they were that day comparatively to the racer who raced in Colorado on the same day or two days later,” Miller elaborated. “No parent even really knows how to do it but 10- and 11-year-old kids learn how to do it. … When we learn that skill set, I could literally look at a race in New Hampshire and say … OK, I’m competitive with this kid who just got 15th place in a race over in Switzerland and I’m also competitive with this kid who got third place out in Colorado.”
This sophisticated analytical approach allows ski racers to predict their potential performance against global competitors without direct head-to-head races occurring regularly. Miller sees a significant, yet underutilized, parallel in horse racing.
“Ironically, that is the exact skill set that’s probably I would say the most underutilized in the horse racing business – making sure that you know what your horses are capable of and you put them into the races that they’re most suited for,” stated Miller.
Furthermore, Miller identifies a critical flaw in many current conditioning plans within horse racing: an overabundance of caution stemming from a fear of injuring the horses. This often results in horses not being trained to the distances or speeds required on race day, particularly in demanding endurance events.
“Anytime you have a huge variance between what you’re training and what you’re actually doing in competition, you’re asking for injuries. That’s across the board in any sport,” Miller emphasized. “Right now in horse racing, I don’t think we’ve ever had a larger gap between what the average trainer is doing with his horses in training and what he’s asking his horse to do in the race. That’s what I intend to change the most drastically.”
Miller expresses keen interest in modern training techniques, such as utilizing high-speed treadmills in laboratory settings to monitor horses’ heart rate variability. He plans to integrate this data-driven approach with traditional horsemanship to optimize equine potential safely.
The objective nature of horse racing, much like ski racing, appeals strongly to Miller. He notes, “It’s an objective sport like ski racing is. It’s generally just based on time. It doesn’t matter if the horse looks funny winning, as long as they’re faster no one can say anything.” This resonates with his own career, where style was often secondary to results. “And that was really one of my greatest loves of ski racing was everyone always said that my style looked like crap but I was fast. I think I relate that to horse racing as well.”
While many former ski racers transition into coaching or media roles, Miller has found a compelling avenue to channel his competitive drive.
“It really is kind of a natural fit in terms of the acquired skill set and the fact that I love the sport and that it’s so thrilling and exciting when you see a horse that you’ve invested your time and energy into and really taken care of win. … It’s very comparable to winning World Cups.”
