Background
Mill Reef was owned and bred in the United States of America at the Rokeby Stables in Virginia of his owner and breeder the philanthropist Paul Mellon. He was a son of Never Bend out of the mare Milan Mill by Princequillo. As a yearling it was thought that his action better suited him to a career on the turf courses in Europe rather than the dirt tracks in America and so he was sent to England in December 1969 to be trained by Paul Mellon's young English trainer Ian Balding at Kingsclere. He was ridden by Geoff Lewis in all his fourteen races. Mellon named the horse after the Mill Reef Club, which is situated on the island of Antigua in the West Indies. The Mellon family has maintained a home at Mill Reef since its founding in 1947.
As a yearling Mill Reef showed himself to be an exceptional talent. Once, whilst visiting the stables and watching the yearlings being put through their paces on the Kingsclere gallops, the noted former amateur jockey and journalist Lord Oaksey asked, "Who's that?" to which Balding replied, "That is Mill Reef!" and he went on to prove himself to be an outstanding two year old in 1970.
The Royal Veterinary College's Hawkshead Campus in Hertfordshire has a dedicated pathology building in memory of Mill Reef named the "Mill Reef Building".
Read more about this topic: Mill Reef
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)