M I L L R EEF
YEARS ON
It is now 50 years since Mill Reef won the Derby, proving to those pedigree experts that doubted his ability to stay, that he really could be at his best over a mile and a half. Mill Reef, a handsome, strong, compact colt, was by Never Bend (second in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness), out of the maiden Milan Mill, bred in America by his owner Paul Mellon. He was sent to England in December 1969, to be trained by Ian Balding at Kingsclere.
As a juvenile, he won five of his six starts and after taking Newbury’s Greenham Stakes as a three-year-old, he finished three lengths second to the great Brigadier Gerard in the 2000 Guineas. Mill Reef would now head to Epsom and despite his sires’ owner/breeder, Harry Guggenheim, strongly doubting Mill
