Page 22 - The Hunt - Spring/Summer 2023

“Nobody knew the country better, and Bruce was
a fearless, beautiful rider. He had an intuitive sense of which way a fox would run.”
—Russell B. Jones Jr., retired Cheshire joint-master
me,” says Blythe, who also rode for legendary trainer Jonathan Sheppard and was one of a few females making a mark in the sport back then. “I didn’t mind—I adore him. I always took his help in so many ways. I worked my whole life to get dad’s attention.”
Miller’s son, Chip, has a steeplechase racing record that includes 212 NSA wins as a jockey. He took the championship in 1996. “I competed against my sister, with my sister and for my father,” he says. “To say that was unique would be an understatement. We both had a different experience with horses because of Dad, and so we probably should’ve been successful. I won’t deny that.”
Chip’s brother-in-law rode more than
100 winners in 500 races from 1979 to 2005. Davies won the 2005 Hunt Cup on the Miller-trained Make Me a Champ, the same horse Blythe rode to first place in the 2002 Virginia Gold Cup. “It was Bruce who gave me the instructions to win that day,” recalls Davies. “He said to just stay out of that horse’s
way and deliver him around the last turn. When Bruce would say something, it gave you such confidence. What Bruce would tell you, you could bank on.”
Russell B. Jones Jr. shared Cheshire joint- master duties with Miller and also rode horses he trained. In 2003, when Mrs. Nancy Penn Smith Hannum stepped down as Cheshire’s master after 58 years, it took three people— Miller, Jones and Nina Gill Strawbridge—to fill her shoes. “We knew the deal,” says Jones. “We had to maintain a reputation.”
Jones and Miller both retired after Cheshire’s centennial season in 2012-13. Jones stopped actively foxhunting two years ago at age 85, though he still follows the hounds in a car. Miller, he says, was a standout as a field master. “Nobody knew the country better, and Bruce was a fearless, beautiful rider,” Jones notes. “He had an intuitive sense of which way a fox would run, so he had people in the right places
98 percent of the time.”
20 THE HUNT MAGAZINE spring 2023