Product Description

Over the last few years Aurum has republished three classic biographies of great racehorses: Arkle, Desert Orchid and Red Rum - all courageous, indefatigable National Hunt horses who won the big, gruelling steeplechases. All had striking contemporary cover designs; all have proved steady sellers. Now, for the fourth title in the series, Aurum publishes the story of one of Britain's greatest flat racing horses, Mill Reef, a magnificent athlete that enjoyed a short, meteoric career tragically truncated by injury. Owned by the wealthy American Paul Mellon, in one year, 1971, Mill Reef won the Derby, the French Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, the Eclipse Stakes and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. A further glittering run in 1972, when he had already won the Coronation Cup, was shockingly curtailed when Mill Reef was found to have broken a leg. But then his story had an extraordinary happy ending: he was not destroyed: remarkable medical treatment saved and healed his leg and saw him go on to a priceless stud career. John Oaksey's book is an affectionate and enthralling chronicle by one of racing's best-loved characters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70682 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
John (Lord) Oaksey was for many years a National Hunt jockey, and then a racing presenter for ITV. His recent autobiography was a major bestseller, He lives in Wiltshire.

Customer Reviews

The horse that made me a racing fan
I had no interest in any kind of sport at school. I actually hated it because I was useless at it. In 1970 (just over a year after leaving school), I was on one of my then-regular holidays in Montrose when, uncharacteristically, it rained the whole time. So I was stuck indoors and ended up watching the horse racing on TV. My interest in the sport was sparked by getting lucky with some small bets that I placed to sustain an interest, having braved the rain to get to the bookmakers and back again, but what really made me a fan was seeing an amazing performance by a young horse called Mill Reef, little knowing just what an impact he would make in the years to come, first on the racecourse and later at stud. After that, I was hooked on racing. However, I rarely bought books in those days, so I didn't buy Mill Reef's biography when it first came out later in the seventies. By the time the book was reprinted in 2006, I was interested in books and I had to buy it.

Let me say straight away that this reprint has no pictures, but the text is unedited, still referring to pictures that were in the original book and still containing typos that were presumably part of that book. At one point, the author suggested that Lombardo was the best 1971 Epsom Derby challenger from Iceland, although he obviously meant Ireland. Even aside from these errors and omissions, it would be good to see a properly revised and updated biography. Such a book would be able to explore Mill Reef's substantial legacy as a stallion as well as changes in training and racing patterns. The text could be revised to reflect this.

For example, two-year-old races are not as important (at least in Britain and Ireland) as they once were. These days, horses with classic potential are lightly raced or unraced as two-year-olds, so it's almost impossible to get a feel for the following year's classics based on two-year form alone. Back in the sixties and seventies, most of the contenders had shown their form and it was case of wondering whether or not they would train on and stay the extra distance. Perhaps the change in policy since then has been caused by a number of top two-year-olds failing to train on. Meanwhile, anybody reading this book and not knowing the history could easily be confused by references to obsession with French two-year-old races.

Once one accepts that the text of this book is unchanged from its original printing, it is faultless. The author gives an excellent account of Mill Reef's racing career in depth, including his training, his idiosynchracies, his races and the problems he encountered. The career began with a victory over Fireside Chat, who had been considered a wonder-horse before he set foot on a racecourse and justified it with his first race. His second race seemed to be a formailty but Mill Reef just brushed him aside. Although Fireside Chat proved that he was a decent racehorse during his career, he is now famous only as the horse who started at 9 to 2 on while carrying a stone (14 pounds) more than the hitherto-unraced Mill Reef. After that race, Mill Reef achieved easy wins at Royal Ascot and in the race at York that impressed me so much while watching TV on that rainy day in Montrose. Between those easy wins, he narrowly lost a race in France to My Swallow, who was unbeaten in nine races as a two-year-old and seemingly failed to train on as a three-year-old, though he started his second season well enough.

Understandably, much space is devoted to the 1971 2,000 Guineas, in which Brigadier Gerard beat Mill Reef by a decisive three lengths with My Swallow third and the others well beaten. As the author says, hindsight is a wonderful thing but the manner of that defeat remains a mystery. Lester Piggott, who rode Nijinsky to victory in the Triple Crown the year before but never had the chance to ride Mill Reef, is quoted in the book as saying (after he won at Ascot in July) that Mill Reef was a better horse than Nijinsky and (after he won in Paris) that he thinks Mill Reef won the Arc despite being over the top. We will never know for sure. Nijinsky was retired to stud at the end of his three-year-old career, so we didn't get the chance to see him take on Mill Reef at Ascot. And while Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard both stayed in training as four-year-olds, the life-threatening injury that ended Mill Reef's racing career denied us the chance of a rematch. In fact, the race in which the rematch was intended to take place resulted in Roberto beating Brigadier Gerard decisively.

The background information about the horse's owner, trainer and pedigree is limited, but it is enough to serve the purpose of the book. For those interested, the owner and trainer have both since written their own biographies, respectively Reflections in a Silver Spoon: A Memoir and Making the Running, while the formal pedigree can be obtained by a simple internet search for Mill Reef pedigree.

For those who are old enough to remember Mill Reef from his racing days, this is a great little book that will jog a few memories. Whether younger people will get the same pleasure, I cannot say. That's where an updated edition would have helped. Without Mill Reef, there would have been no Daylami, no Sir Percy, no Slip Anchor and no Reference Point - to name just a few of the many horses descended from him. Mention of these and others in an extra chapter about his legacy would surely increase interest among younger readers.

I'd give the original book five stars, but as a direct reprint, I can only give this four stars. Mill Reef, of course, will always be a five star horse in my book. He's still my all-time favorite racehorse.