Heritage · From the archive
How an 80-page pamphlet became the Australian racing bible
In 1875 J.J. Miller printed a guide for punters betting on the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. It outlived him by a century.
Heritage Desk · · 6 min read
Est. 1875James John Miller stepped off a ship in Melbourne in 1848. He was sixteen. Within a generation he was a bookmaker, a racehorse owner and a printer, and in 1875 he put the three together.
The first edition was a modest pamphlet, around 80 pages, built to help punters betting on the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. It was first known as J.J. Miller’s Sporting Pamphlet, later J.J. Miller’s Sporting Annual, and to generations of racegoers simply as Miller’s Guide.
The book that settled arguments
By the early 1880s it had grown into a thick annual of results and records: place-getters in the major races, sporting records and a form guide to every Cup entry. Pubs kept a copy behind the bar. When a bet turned on who ran second in a Cup forty years earlier, Miller’s was where you looked.
“To many, it was simply “Miller’s Guide” — the book that settled arguments.”
Print had a great run
The 2015/16 edition was meant to be the last in print, a casualty of printing costs and falling readership. The guide was revived in print in 2019. Now, 151 years after the first pamphlet, it returns as a daily racing newsroom.