The man behind the gavel.

The Story

A career built on the floor

For all that he works, all of the thoroughbred sales in his homeland occupy only a few days in his calendar.

In other times Durban-based Miller could be selling prize bulls or high-end property, having made his way up from the very bottom as an aspiring auctioneer.

The experiences from long journeys to the furthest reaches of the South African countryside and beyond have inspired him to write a book, the fruits of a good deal of nagging by his daughter Jessica.

“Every time we’d go on holiday, we’d drive past a farm and I’d say, ‘This one is this bloke’s’ and so on, she’d say, ‘You know all these people, you’ve got all these stories, just write a book even if it’s just for us as a family’,” Miller explains. “She’s been pestering me for ages.

“I hadn’t ever kept a diary but last year I jotted some notes down. I thought if I’m going to write something, I don’t want it to just be about this top price and that pedigree, that property, I want to talk about the characters of the industry, the people that have taught me lessons. There’s humour behind it, stories around auctions. It’s really just a fireside chat of a journey of my 45 years of being in the business.”

Miller had vaguely considered journalism as a career option after his mandatory national service in the early 1980s and he enjoyed the writing process, enlisting an author friend for some early help knocking it into shape. Between The Bids, his resulting effort, was then fine-tuned by Sheena Carnie of consultancy Fresh Eyes.

There’s a bit of family history included; the Millers were originally farmers from Yorkshire but arrived by ship among the 1820 settlers to the Eastern Cape.

His father was among those who continued to work the land and even played polo for South Africa while his son, David, is one of the world’s leading white-ball cricketers.

Miller’s early memories of his own professional career are still vivid.

“They used to have a KwaZulu-Natal stock-owners division which did the people’s auctions in what we call Zululand, up towards Mozambique,” he says.

“It’s a very rural area where people live in the bushveld [grassland]. Every month there’d be an auction around a dip tank, where the government stock inspector would dip the cattle for ticks and so on. The local ladies of the communities would come and sell their wares – the bags and veggies and things – and we’d have a cattle sale there.

“It was very rustic and it was where they’d thrust the young auctioneers in to learn from. A guy who was an ex-South African boxing champion was teaching us. All of us came through that passage of play and as you developed, you’d eventually end up in the more formal sector.”

Miller’s first involvement in selling horses came about by a stroke of luck at about the turn of the century. There had previously been only one auction company, Bloodstock South Africa, which was a bit of a closed shop at the time, until breeder Lionel Cohen disrupted the scene by establishing Equimark, a precursor to what is now the predominantly Cape Town-based Race Coast Sales. More auctioneers were suddenly needed and Miller passed muster.

“You develop your own style but I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some of the best in the game,” he says. “From this country there was Clive Gardner, who sold at Goffs for many years but also Henry Beeby, John O’Kelly, Steve Davis from New Zealand, Grant Burns Down Under. Those guys are renowned and South Africa has had some other really good auctioneers who mentored me early on.

“I’m often working on my own but when you do sales with other people I really enjoy it. You can see how they handle difficult situations, because auctioneering is a street degree, you can’t teach it in a boardroom. It’s an experience that teaches you not to get another bloodied nose!”

This grounding means Miller is unfazed by racing, even if it is not his mainstay.

“Horses are not so different to livestock as they also have pedigrees and three generations and performance criteria too,” he says. “The top bulls sell for R4,000,000 or R5,000,000 [approx. £200,000], they are like racehorses in that we’re selling genetics.

“The property side is a different type of style, you’re dealing with high value and big buildings. I just sold a building the other day for R285 million [approximately £13 million] at auction. So that’s a little slower, more Sotheby’s style, whereas horses and cattle are more machine-gun style if you want to differentiate. But as with anything, you’ve got to do your homework.”

Miller promises there are plenty of racing tales in the book too, particularly as he’s a schoolfriend of Klawervlei’s John Koster, longstanding custodian of the farm behind legendary sire Captain Al.

His recollections of some of the best horses he has sold are pretty flawless, too.

“From the Klawervlei farm sales there was Kommetdieding, I sold him for R55,000. He was just a scrubby little horse then and he ended up one of only six or seven to win the Met and the Durban July,” he says.

“There was also Pocket Power, a great horse back years ago, he was a gelding but he also won the July and the Met.

“Igugu was a great little filly sold for R1,000,000 [Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale] who raced on the world stage. There’s lots of them, but that’s only because I’m contracted to both sales companies and I’m involved in every sale every year. So whether I’ve sold them or not, I’ve been at the sale.”

The only problem with the book is that, for the time being, it is only being distributed in South Africa via online marketplace Burble.

The first customers have been those asking for the copies he’s had in the boot of his car. The figures Miller has met along the road are those who have not only inspired the story but motivate him to continue.

“Realistically, property I can sell until I’m 85 or 90 but the cattle and the horses are quite mentally draining,” he says. “I’ve been doing it for 45 years now and I’ve got to be up for it, it’s a long day of trading.

“Property sales are shorter, in an air-conditioned room, but sometimes I’ll be selling livestock in a marquee tent with wooden stands, dust and flies, the wind’s blowing in. It’s such a different flavour but I know the people and the people know me.”