GREG MILES’ career as a race-caller came to an end last Saturday but he won’t be entirely lost to the airwaves. Steve reports.
Accuracy is, of course, also a virtue. Miles was accurate. Still is, which makes you wonder whether his retirement (from calling) is premature. Mind you, he seems to be comfortable with the decision.
A sharp wit and a self deprecating sense of humour helps. Another of Miles’ attributes.
“I just wanted to be in radio. I thought it would be a hoot. I wanted to just sit there and play records and tell the time,” he told Doug Aiton in a 2015 interview.
Nothing’s changed. “I’m seeking out all the safe havens,” he told me this week in reference to three impending overseas trips which includes visits to Marrakesh and Port Moresby.
Now I’m picturing him spinning discs and flipping on Crosby, Stills and Nash. “Would you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express……all on board that train…”
Miles, as a guest of organisers and fellow Victorian caller Victoria Shaw, will attend the 2017 World Arabian Horse Racing Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco. It runs from May 1 to 7, under the auspices of HH Sheikh Mansoor Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. That does sound like a ‘hoot’.
“I’ll take a camera from TRP (Thoroughbred Racing Productions) and shoot some stuff,” Miles said – which will be a precursor to Miles providing documentary content for Racing.com later in the year.
The trip to Port Moresby is a little more routine as he accompanies former jockey John Letts to a Carbine Club function in the Papua New Guinea capital.
Miles’ life away from the binoculars – and the form guide – is well scheduled for the next three or four months. Before he returns to Radio RSN, in August, to join the Saturday morning panel.
Initially it’s the freedom of going to the footy without having to worry about form or preparing to call. Then it’s several speaking engagements in and outside Australia plus a non-working holiday or two with wife Alison.
“I certainly didn’t go to Sandown on Monday. Williamstown played Casey at home, and I was standing on the hill with a cold beer and a few mates,” Miles said.
Miles, who called his first Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) in 1981 (Just A Dash) at the age of 22, was born and raised in Williamstown. The son of a wool classer, he still lives there.
And next Monday is sorted. He’ll be at the MCG to see his beloved AFL team Richmond take on Melbourne. A luxury afforded to him only five or six times a year, until now, because of racing commitments. An excursion generally undertaken with his son Daniel who formerly worked at Racing.com and is now with Channel 9 in Gippsland.
But what of a race free next Saturday? “I’m not sure what I’ll do but I do know I won’t be doing the form or having a bet. It’s quite draining (the form) for say three meetings a week and I’ll be happy to give it away for a while before getting back into it before next spring.
“You know I haven’t read a book for years so that might be a better option now than reading the form,” he said.
Miles has always liked a bet. However, such was his professionalism, I can’t ever recall it influencing his calling.
He did, with the consent of Alison (no wonder he married her), risk all of their savings which was $4000 – in a bid to increase the house deposit fund – on Campaign King in the 1986 William Reid Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) at Moonee Valley. “Just beat King Phoenix in a photo,” Miles recalls.
Now this must be one of the greatest bets of all time given that the media house price now, in Williamstown, is $1,300,000. And while Google couldn’t help me with the 1986 median, I do know that I bought a house in Melbourne – around that time – for $40,000.
Miles’ breadth of performance didn’t quite match that of predecessor Bill Collins who did everything from song and dance on ’Sunnyside Up’ to World Of Sport. “No, never done any variety or vaudeville….as much as I wanted to,” Miles said.
However, like Collins, he did read the news and for no less than 18 years on the weekends on ABC television. “Racing got a run on the sports news then,” he said.
His most memorable ‘the show must go on’ moment came during one of those news segments. “My cameraman, just before I’d be in shot, said he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sit down. He then face planted off the chair and collapsed in a pool of blood on the news room floor with the camera then swinging from side to side. You had to carry on. Fortunately the bloke was all right afterwards,” he said.
Not only does Miles boast the record number of Melbourne Cups, 36 eclipsing Collins’ mark, he has effectively ‘owned’ the race in recent years.
While his wonderful closing tags, to Cups, have not necessarily been rehearsed he does concede there’s generally been some thought given to it before hand. Either way, he’s invariably nailed it. Capturing the moment, without being overly forced, verbose or saccharine.
“A champion becomes a legend” – Maybe Diva. “Riding with the spirit of Jason” – Damien Oliver on Media Puzzle. “Tres bien” – Americain.
But none was better, in my opinion, than “Viewed a nose to Bauer, I think” which was brilliant in an impossibly close finish to the 2008 Cup and given that every instinct must have been to lean to the runner-up who had the momentum. He was right of course but I loved that tiny hint of disclaimer – “I think.”
Of course, there’s been the odd mistake – albeit rare – along the way and Miles admits that he also ‘wrote off’ Kingston Town in the 1982 Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) but it was Collins’ ‘Kingston Town can’t win’ which got all the air play.
At least, as far as I know, he’s never been the mistaken subject in an interview as was the case with Collins, race caller not movie critic, in 1992.
Greg Evans and Sam Newman were fill-in hosts on 3AW breakfast and in a segment about TV and movies, producer Jamie Wilczek, got Bill Collins on the line.
Newman asked Collins his opinion about the Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven winning the best-picture Oscar, Collins said: “The Unforgiven? I don’t know – I’ve never seen the Unforgiven. I probably will go and see it.”
A stumped Evans said: “Bill, that surprises me. Do you normally wait for some time before you see the current movies?” Collins: “Yeah, quite a while. It’s a matter of finding a bit of spare time.” The hosts cottoned on that something was wrong and an expletive was beeped out. Evans cracked up laughing, blurting: “Sam, you’d better take over.”
Fittingly, the Miles and Collins link, continued to the end. “By coincidence, and it was not planned this way but it is quite nice, the late great Bill Collins also retired at the corresponding meeting in 1988,” Miles said.
Miles is anxious to have it known that he had nothing to do with the appointment of his successor Matt Hill. “I believe the right choice has been made but I stepped away from the process. Originally I agreed to be part of the appointment panel when approached by Bernard Saundry (then CEO of RVL) but quickly withdrew when I considered that I would know most of the applicants,” he said.
I thought it would be unfair to ask Miles to name his current favourite callers in Australia but he was happy to answer as to who he considered to be the best elsewhere. “I think Richard Hoiles and Simon Holt, in the UK, would be the top two at the moment,” he said.