What do you think?
Rate this book
The Legend of Mick the Miller : Sporting Icon of the Depression
Paperback edition of the highly-acclaimed biography of sporting icon Mick the Miller, the best known and best loved dog in British history. Mick's story amounts to a fairy tale. Bred by a gambling-mad priest, Mick emerged from the backwoods of Ireland to sweep all before him. As a youngster he survives a killer disease to win Derbies and break records at will; as a veteran he fights back from injury to bow out before 70,000 adoring fans with victory in the St Leger over a distance considered inappropriate for an ageing greyhound. Mick was a freak of nature. He won by cunning and brainpower more than raw speed. In retirement he capitalises upon this intelligence and becomes a role model for Red Rum and Desert Orchid by earning a living on the celebrity circuit, even meeting the King and Queen. But Mick goes one better, starring in his own feature film - which he steals from the 'real' actors.
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 23, 2003
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 11, 2025
Great book on the Greyhound that is the most famous ever.
First, I would like to tell of my brief experience with dog racing. In Phoenix I had a friend who worked concessions at the dog track for nine years. Someone in there I remember going to the track at least a couple of times. I don’t remember much, just kind of cool to see the dogs race around the track. But since I didn’t know the dogs and didn’t bet, like any sporting event, if you don’t care about at one of the teams or one of the players on a team, you don’t get invested in it or too excited. Still, seeing a dog off leash running is a beautiful sight, and especially greyhounds from the way they leave the ground with their leaps.
Second, I want to address why it is a good thing that Greyhound racing is no longer much of a thing. I looked it up and greyhound racing with pari-mutuel betting is still legal and practiced in a handful of countries and in the United States:
• ‘United States: Currently, West Virginia is the only state in the U.S. with active greyhound racing tracks. Although it's still legal in some other states like Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin, there are no active tracks in those locations at present. It is illegal in 44 states.
It is good they don’t do greyhound racing because breeders went through a lot of dogs to find the best ones and culled the rest. Also, after a dog no longer was fast enough for racing it often was cast off. I also don’t like to think of a dog treated like a tool to take in and out of the toolbox instead of having a more fulfilling life.
Mick the Miller was born about the same time that greyhound racing started.
'All the burgeoning sport needed was a hero, a greyhound who was more than a trap number, a dog with the ‘It’ factor to match Clara Bow.'
Two priests and fans of greyhounds were intrigued about friar Gregor Mendel’s experiments with peas and later bees that revolutionized thinking about heredity. So, they set out to breed a better greyhound with the dog Na Boc Lei they had. I liked this bit from the book on the conversation they had leading up to that (if you can decipher the dialogue):
The two Fathers had a picture in their mind’s eye of the kind of dog that would fit the bill. After all, had not the ‘Propeteis of a goode, Grehound’ been identified as long ago as 1481? In The Boke of St Albans, attributed to Dame Julia Berners and one of the earliest printed works, the good prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell listed the desired traits as follows:
Heded like a Snake.
And necked like a Drake.
Foted like a Kat.
Tayld like a Rat.
Syded lyke a Teme.
Chyned like a Beme.
More then those physical features though was-
‘But, prized above all, reasoned the two priests, was pluck. They could ill-afford to breed back to a‘soft’ one, the kind of flagrant ‘chucker’ who quits when the going gets tough. The courageous dog will prevail, they insisted, where the faster coward succumbs. For God surely hates a coward. Yes, courage was the holy grail they must seek.’
After they bred their dog with the best they could find there was a litter of 10 puppies. One was smaller then the rest and was of a brindle color which wasn’t favored at the time. All the puppies were given names beginning with M, and the small one they named Mick the Miller.
Here is a description of the meaning of the word ‘Miller.’
‘Milling’ has always been associated with a never-say-die, all-action style of fighting (and still is in the Parachute Regiment of the British army) but to refer to anyone of anything as ‘a miller’ in these parts of Ireland was more a sign of admiration of respect or endearment — occasionally even all three. 'A miller of a dog or hare’ in the coursing field was a game animal; ‘the miller of a player’ on the hurling field was one worth watching, a non-stop performer, one always milling around.
I won’t be writing much about the names of the people who came to own Mick the Miller, but Father Brophy sent Mick to one of the best trainers named Micheal Horan. Horan had a way with the dogs:
‘As with the successful trainer of any animal, Horan enjoyed an uncanny rapport with his charges, in his case a form of canine green fingers. Blessed with a photographic memory, he knew every hair on the head of every dog in his care. He’d spend hours with his dogs, walking them across the fields, talking to them, all the while chewing on a straw and trying in every way possible to get inside their heads so that each could be treated as an individual.
He ran his Agher kennel like an army camp. Every paw was examined and washed; every nail filed; every tooth brushed with baking soda; every coat combed, oiled and rubbed down; every constitution dosed with syrup of blackthorn boosted by a dash of Powers whiskey.’
He could see the potential in the dog from his earliest races. Throughout the book there are numerous great stories of Mick working out ways getting through the other dogs to come from behind to win. I will include some excerpts in this review. This was from his first:
‘Then something extraordinary happened. Mick, as if he’d been biding his time all the while, suddenly dived behind the leader’s hind quarters to reach the inside rail for the final bend. This seemingly conscious manoeuvre acted like a form of jet propulsion that catapulted Mick clear, and he crossed the line half a length to the good.’
As Mick was first poised to take off, he comes down with what they believe to be distemper! I know we all feel for a poor sick dog. Will he live? Will he be able to come back in shape to race again at the same intensity? Of course he does. Here are just a few of those exciting race details after he comes back:
‘Old Blade unleashed all the accumulated guile of the courser and street fighter he undoubtedly was to shoulder Mick aside as they met the bend in unison.
A precious three-length gap opened up while Mick found his feet and steadied himself for a response down the back straight. The bay of the crowd, briefly muted at the sight of its money going down the drain, rose again in approval at the sight of Mick the Miller hurtling after Odd Blade like a javelin. Mick caught the old champion halfway down the straight, ran past him as if he was a back-number — which subsequent victories in both the Belsize and Cork Cups proved he was not — and pulled further and further away rounding the final parabola to win by four long lengths in a time only 1/100th of a second outside his track record.’
‘Mick (13/8 on) trapped the better of the pair but Doumergue quickly drew level and, profiting from his inside box, had pulled clear going round the first turn. Down the back and round the final two bends, Mick repeatedly probed for an opening on the rail. Doumergue would not budge. There was nowhere for Mick to go except down the centre of the track. With time and distance slipping away, Mick took the outside tack and lowered his head for one final charge. Bit by bit he ate into Doumergue’s advantage. First, he reached Doumergue’s quarters. Then his shoulders. One last desperate lunge. The two dogs broke the finishing beam side by side. Mick had won by a short head.’
‘At the halfway mark, the young pretender was six long, long lengths ahead of Mick. Dividing them was Clandown Sweep, who had recently set a new world record for 725 yards. Neither of these two was going to be short of puff during the closing stages.
But rounding the final curve the inevitable, sure-as-God-made little-green-apples, Mick the Miller charge began to make inroads. Mick clawed his way up the rail toward the duelling leaders. He got to them with less than 20 yards to go. The three dogs raced nose to nose toward the line. Mick’s head was stuck out the furthest where it mattered. ‘I knew Mick would do it!’ exclaimed Sidney Orton to no one in particular. ‘I knew it! He’s a wonder!’
I also enjoyed the discussion on what made Mick the Miller so special:
‘As the man at his side throughout the preliminaries, Joe Ollis was better situated than most to sense this metamorphosis. ‘I never have to put him in the starting box, he told a reporter from the Daily Mail. ‘He runs to it himself, as he loves racing. The secret of Mick’s success is his marvellous intelligence. He runs a race as though he had a clever jockey guiding him. He hangs back at the start, watches the other dogs, and cuts in to take the inside position at just the right moment. I love to see him run wide at first. The spectators groan in disappointment. Then Mick cuts in and wins by a head. It is sheer brainwork. He is a nice tractable dog to train, never worries about a race and the most intelligent I have ever come across — see also how he swings his big tail to act as a rudder on the bends and as a brake when he is easing up. It’s perhaps difficult for some people to realise the great wind pressure a greyhound encounters at full speed, and how that pressure can be used for curving round bends. During most of a race Mick will keep his tail well down, almost touching the ground when he’s at top speed, but see him approach a bend at 40 mph. Down comes his tail, turned to the inside of the bend, and he is steered round?’
‘To attribute craftiness to a greyhound, added Edwards Clarke, ‘is to invite the rebukes of those who argue that such a sense — approaching as it does an ability to reason — is denied to all but humans. Be that as it may, to my mind the ability to exercise muscles in a special way, to control and moderate pace, to preserve perfect balance at all angles of full speed, is surely an ability that at least owes something to mental direction. Certain it is that the phrase “track sense” ts the best description of just that “something” that distinguished Mick the Miller from the rest of his contemporaries.’
Like every good thrilling story, there must be setbacks. After a couple of years of success, Mick the Miller gets injured. And he is getting older. Can he come back to win? I like this description from Mick’s owner (lady half of the couple who own him then.)
‘Phiddy did not have to watch in order to appreciate the scenes unfurling beneath her on the track. She knew her darling Mick would be revelling in the cheers of his fan club, his tail wagging like a demented white-tipped metronome. She knew her darling Mick would be prancing out of Joe Ollis’ hands, eager to savour the momentary solitude of the box that ushered in those exhilarating 30 seconds his life revolved around. She knew her darling Mick would walk sprightly into that darkness where others demanded a push and a shove. She knew her darling Mick would run his heart out for her. She knew her darling Mick would win. But she could not bring herself to watch.’
When Mick the Miller’s racing career does end, the story doesn’t end for him. He gets cast in a British movie. While the script is said to be banal, and the human performances ‘amount to prime ham off the acting bone.’ Mick was a hit in the movie. Unfortunately the movie is locked away in archives now.
‘Wild Boy was unveiled in May 1934 and went on general release from 2 July. It was met by enthusiastic reviews, not least for the acting debut of its canine star who was instantly garlanded with the title of England’s very own Rin-Tin-Tin — conveniently forgetting that Mick was, in fact, Irish!
One last excerpt to rob from near the end of the book to sum up the importance of Mick the Miller:
‘The role of trailblazer is never easy; first up the ladder, an unenviable position. To scale the walls of the broader sporting church required more than a mere champion greyhound. It demanded a truly charismatic figure whose qualities people could readily identify and admire. Thanks to Mick the Miller greyhounds were elevated from numbers to names.
Secondly, and more significantly, Mick’s fame transcended sport. At one point, for example, Mick was even adopted by the political cartoonist ‘Grime’ as a totem of the nation’s noble and relentless pursuit of economic solvency (depicted by a hare). Cartoonists could get away with this because there was hardly a household in the land that had not heard of “Good Old Mick’, the dog with a personality, the dog who puts a smile on your face, the dog who brought joy into so many otherwise drab lives.
On those two counts, no greyhound, no matter how successful, will ever deprive Mick of his right to be acclaimed as the greatest greyhound of all time. He remains the sport’s one and only undisputed icon.’
I recommend the book. Or at least to look up Mick the Miller in Wikipedia. But you get much more in the book and it also has multiple pictures.
(Note, I tried to leave the original spelling and punctuation in the excerpts.)
First, I would like to tell of my brief experience with dog racing. In Phoenix I had a friend who worked concessions at the dog track for nine years. Someone in there I remember going to the track at least a couple of times. I don’t remember much, just kind of cool to see the dogs race around the track. But since I didn’t know the dogs and didn’t bet, like any sporting event, if you don’t care about at one of the teams or one of the players on a team, you don’t get invested in it or too excited. Still, seeing a dog off leash running is a beautiful sight, and especially greyhounds from the way they leave the ground with their leaps.
Second, I want to address why it is a good thing that Greyhound racing is no longer much of a thing. I looked it up and greyhound racing with pari-mutuel betting is still legal and practiced in a handful of countries and in the United States:
• ‘United States: Currently, West Virginia is the only state in the U.S. with active greyhound racing tracks. Although it's still legal in some other states like Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin, there are no active tracks in those locations at present. It is illegal in 44 states.
It is good they don’t do greyhound racing because breeders went through a lot of dogs to find the best ones and culled the rest. Also, after a dog no longer was fast enough for racing it often was cast off. I also don’t like to think of a dog treated like a tool to take in and out of the toolbox instead of having a more fulfilling life.
Mick the Miller was born about the same time that greyhound racing started.
'All the burgeoning sport needed was a hero, a greyhound who was more than a trap number, a dog with the ‘It’ factor to match Clara Bow.'
Two priests and fans of greyhounds were intrigued about friar Gregor Mendel’s experiments with peas and later bees that revolutionized thinking about heredity. So, they set out to breed a better greyhound with the dog Na Boc Lei they had. I liked this bit from the book on the conversation they had leading up to that (if you can decipher the dialogue):
The two Fathers had a picture in their mind’s eye of the kind of dog that would fit the bill. After all, had not the ‘Propeteis of a goode, Grehound’ been identified as long ago as 1481? In The Boke of St Albans, attributed to Dame Julia Berners and one of the earliest printed works, the good prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell listed the desired traits as follows:
Heded like a Snake.
And necked like a Drake.
Foted like a Kat.
Tayld like a Rat.
Syded lyke a Teme.
Chyned like a Beme.
More then those physical features though was-
‘But, prized above all, reasoned the two priests, was pluck. They could ill-afford to breed back to a‘soft’ one, the kind of flagrant ‘chucker’ who quits when the going gets tough. The courageous dog will prevail, they insisted, where the faster coward succumbs. For God surely hates a coward. Yes, courage was the holy grail they must seek.’
After they bred their dog with the best they could find there was a litter of 10 puppies. One was smaller then the rest and was of a brindle color which wasn’t favored at the time. All the puppies were given names beginning with M, and the small one they named Mick the Miller.
Here is a description of the meaning of the word ‘Miller.’
‘Milling’ has always been associated with a never-say-die, all-action style of fighting (and still is in the Parachute Regiment of the British army) but to refer to anyone of anything as ‘a miller’ in these parts of Ireland was more a sign of admiration of respect or endearment — occasionally even all three. 'A miller of a dog or hare’ in the coursing field was a game animal; ‘the miller of a player’ on the hurling field was one worth watching, a non-stop performer, one always milling around.
I won’t be writing much about the names of the people who came to own Mick the Miller, but Father Brophy sent Mick to one of the best trainers named Micheal Horan. Horan had a way with the dogs:
‘As with the successful trainer of any animal, Horan enjoyed an uncanny rapport with his charges, in his case a form of canine green fingers. Blessed with a photographic memory, he knew every hair on the head of every dog in his care. He’d spend hours with his dogs, walking them across the fields, talking to them, all the while chewing on a straw and trying in every way possible to get inside their heads so that each could be treated as an individual.
He ran his Agher kennel like an army camp. Every paw was examined and washed; every nail filed; every tooth brushed with baking soda; every coat combed, oiled and rubbed down; every constitution dosed with syrup of blackthorn boosted by a dash of Powers whiskey.’
He could see the potential in the dog from his earliest races. Throughout the book there are numerous great stories of Mick working out ways getting through the other dogs to come from behind to win. I will include some excerpts in this review. This was from his first:
‘Then something extraordinary happened. Mick, as if he’d been biding his time all the while, suddenly dived behind the leader’s hind quarters to reach the inside rail for the final bend. This seemingly conscious manoeuvre acted like a form of jet propulsion that catapulted Mick clear, and he crossed the line half a length to the good.’
As Mick was first poised to take off, he comes down with what they believe to be distemper! I know we all feel for a poor sick dog. Will he live? Will he be able to come back in shape to race again at the same intensity? Of course he does. Here are just a few of those exciting race details after he comes back:
‘Old Blade unleashed all the accumulated guile of the courser and street fighter he undoubtedly was to shoulder Mick aside as they met the bend in unison.
A precious three-length gap opened up while Mick found his feet and steadied himself for a response down the back straight. The bay of the crowd, briefly muted at the sight of its money going down the drain, rose again in approval at the sight of Mick the Miller hurtling after Odd Blade like a javelin. Mick caught the old champion halfway down the straight, ran past him as if he was a back-number — which subsequent victories in both the Belsize and Cork Cups proved he was not — and pulled further and further away rounding the final parabola to win by four long lengths in a time only 1/100th of a second outside his track record.’
‘Mick (13/8 on) trapped the better of the pair but Doumergue quickly drew level and, profiting from his inside box, had pulled clear going round the first turn. Down the back and round the final two bends, Mick repeatedly probed for an opening on the rail. Doumergue would not budge. There was nowhere for Mick to go except down the centre of the track. With time and distance slipping away, Mick took the outside tack and lowered his head for one final charge. Bit by bit he ate into Doumergue’s advantage. First, he reached Doumergue’s quarters. Then his shoulders. One last desperate lunge. The two dogs broke the finishing beam side by side. Mick had won by a short head.’
‘At the halfway mark, the young pretender was six long, long lengths ahead of Mick. Dividing them was Clandown Sweep, who had recently set a new world record for 725 yards. Neither of these two was going to be short of puff during the closing stages.
But rounding the final curve the inevitable, sure-as-God-made little-green-apples, Mick the Miller charge began to make inroads. Mick clawed his way up the rail toward the duelling leaders. He got to them with less than 20 yards to go. The three dogs raced nose to nose toward the line. Mick’s head was stuck out the furthest where it mattered. ‘I knew Mick would do it!’ exclaimed Sidney Orton to no one in particular. ‘I knew it! He’s a wonder!’
I also enjoyed the discussion on what made Mick the Miller so special:
‘As the man at his side throughout the preliminaries, Joe Ollis was better situated than most to sense this metamorphosis. ‘I never have to put him in the starting box, he told a reporter from the Daily Mail. ‘He runs to it himself, as he loves racing. The secret of Mick’s success is his marvellous intelligence. He runs a race as though he had a clever jockey guiding him. He hangs back at the start, watches the other dogs, and cuts in to take the inside position at just the right moment. I love to see him run wide at first. The spectators groan in disappointment. Then Mick cuts in and wins by a head. It is sheer brainwork. He is a nice tractable dog to train, never worries about a race and the most intelligent I have ever come across — see also how he swings his big tail to act as a rudder on the bends and as a brake when he is easing up. It’s perhaps difficult for some people to realise the great wind pressure a greyhound encounters at full speed, and how that pressure can be used for curving round bends. During most of a race Mick will keep his tail well down, almost touching the ground when he’s at top speed, but see him approach a bend at 40 mph. Down comes his tail, turned to the inside of the bend, and he is steered round?’
‘To attribute craftiness to a greyhound, added Edwards Clarke, ‘is to invite the rebukes of those who argue that such a sense — approaching as it does an ability to reason — is denied to all but humans. Be that as it may, to my mind the ability to exercise muscles in a special way, to control and moderate pace, to preserve perfect balance at all angles of full speed, is surely an ability that at least owes something to mental direction. Certain it is that the phrase “track sense” ts the best description of just that “something” that distinguished Mick the Miller from the rest of his contemporaries.’
Like every good thrilling story, there must be setbacks. After a couple of years of success, Mick the Miller gets injured. And he is getting older. Can he come back to win? I like this description from Mick’s owner (lady half of the couple who own him then.)
‘Phiddy did not have to watch in order to appreciate the scenes unfurling beneath her on the track. She knew her darling Mick would be revelling in the cheers of his fan club, his tail wagging like a demented white-tipped metronome. She knew her darling Mick would be prancing out of Joe Ollis’ hands, eager to savour the momentary solitude of the box that ushered in those exhilarating 30 seconds his life revolved around. She knew her darling Mick would walk sprightly into that darkness where others demanded a push and a shove. She knew her darling Mick would run his heart out for her. She knew her darling Mick would win. But she could not bring herself to watch.’
When Mick the Miller’s racing career does end, the story doesn’t end for him. He gets cast in a British movie. While the script is said to be banal, and the human performances ‘amount to prime ham off the acting bone.’ Mick was a hit in the movie. Unfortunately the movie is locked away in archives now.
‘Wild Boy was unveiled in May 1934 and went on general release from 2 July. It was met by enthusiastic reviews, not least for the acting debut of its canine star who was instantly garlanded with the title of England’s very own Rin-Tin-Tin — conveniently forgetting that Mick was, in fact, Irish!
One last excerpt to rob from near the end of the book to sum up the importance of Mick the Miller:
‘The role of trailblazer is never easy; first up the ladder, an unenviable position. To scale the walls of the broader sporting church required more than a mere champion greyhound. It demanded a truly charismatic figure whose qualities people could readily identify and admire. Thanks to Mick the Miller greyhounds were elevated from numbers to names.
Secondly, and more significantly, Mick’s fame transcended sport. At one point, for example, Mick was even adopted by the political cartoonist ‘Grime’ as a totem of the nation’s noble and relentless pursuit of economic solvency (depicted by a hare). Cartoonists could get away with this because there was hardly a household in the land that had not heard of “Good Old Mick’, the dog with a personality, the dog who puts a smile on your face, the dog who brought joy into so many otherwise drab lives.
On those two counts, no greyhound, no matter how successful, will ever deprive Mick of his right to be acclaimed as the greatest greyhound of all time. He remains the sport’s one and only undisputed icon.’
I recommend the book. Or at least to look up Mick the Miller in Wikipedia. But you get much more in the book and it also has multiple pictures.
(Note, I tried to leave the original spelling and punctuation in the excerpts.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review