Hall of Fame

 



delvin miller

Year of Induction: 
1969
Year of Birth: 
1913
Immortal: 
Yes
DriverTrainer: 
Yes
OwnerBreeder: 
Yes
Executive Official: 
Yes
Driver: 
Yes
Owner: 
Yes
Executive: 
Yes
Election Into Living Hall of Fame: 
1968
Year of Death: 
1996
Biography: 

Born on July 5, 1913, Delvin Miller was the only professional in any sport whose career spanned eight decades. He won more than $11 million and 2,442 races, including the Hambletonian, the Little Brown Jug and the Kentucky Futurity. He drove and trained such stars as Dale Frost, Countess Vivian, Tarport Hap, Tyler B., Adios Betty, Harlan Dean, Meadow Rice, Helicopter and Stenographer. Miller received the Proximity Achievement Award and twice was named the leading moneywinning driver. He founded The Meadows racetrack in Meadow Lands, Pennsylvania, and was inducted into the Harness Racing Living Hall of Fame in 1969. In 1973, Miller trained Delmonica Hanover to win the International Trot and the Prix d'Amerique in France. In 1982 Miller trained and drove Arndon to a world record 1:54 time-trial and received the Messenger Award from the Harness Tracks of America. In 1985 he formed the Delvin Miller Amateur Drivers Association to promote the sport among amateur drivers. In 1988 at the Meadowlands, New Jersey, seventy-five year old Miller, in a high-wheel sulky, broke a ninety-seven year trotting record by driving Keystone Investor to a mile in 2:04. He created the annual Harness Tracks of America Red Smith award to honor outstanding horse caretakers and was awarded the Harness Horse Youth Foundation's Service to Youth Award in 1980. Miller's final drive, on May 3, 1996, was a winning performance in a qualifying race, driving his three-year-old trotting filly Keystone Scarlett. Delvin Miller, a former president of the Grand Circuit and an officer and trustee of the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame, died on August 19, 1996 at the age of eighty-three.

Published in the Harness Racing Museum's 1997 book, The 1996-7 Immortals