Mill Reef: A Legacy of Heart
Emily Ellis
Although no thoroughbreds grace Oak Spring’s fields today, they are an important part of our site’s history. Paul Mellon - the husband of OSGF founder Bunny Mellon - was a renowned breeder of racehorses at his Rokeby Stables. Among them was the legendary bay colt Mill Reef, who dominated European tracks during the early 1970s and captured the hearts of countless racing fans.
The Mill Reef statue that stands in the courtyard of the Broodmare Barn at Oak Spring. It is a replica of the original John R. Skeaping piece that Paul Mellon commissioned.
Relatively small in stature but possessing a light, fluid stride and an indomitable heart, Mill Reef was born at Rokeby in 1969. He would soon join the ranks of history’s greatest racehorses, winning 12 out of the 14 races he ran during his career, among them the Epsom Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
Mill Reef was named British Horse of the Year in November 1971, and in 2020, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation set out to create a short documentary about the colt in honor of the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary achievement. The film also spotlights the fierce dedication of Mill Reef’s trainer Ian Balding, his jockey Geoff Lewis, his breeder and owner Paul Mellon, and others whose lives were shaped by the horse.
Although the public release of the documentary was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are thrilled to finally share this project with our community and celebrate one of Rokeby’s most important residents.
“A hundred years from now, the only place my name will turn up anywhere will be in the studbook, for I was the breeder of Mill Reef.”
“I was so touched when Elinor [Crane] asked me to take on this project,” said Cassidy Glascock, the local filmmaker behind Mill Reef: A Legacy of Heart.
The documentary was a “true labor of love and teamwork,” she continued. It combined decades of archived footage and photographs, and was done with the collaboration and help of many museums and galleries, along with Oak Spring Garden Foundation staff members.
“It would be so great for Mr. Mellon to know that we his family, here at Oak Spring, put the film together to show in the community of Middleburg, where he was very generous to the Sporting Library and Museum,” said Nancy Collins, archivist at the Oak Spring Garden Library, who worked for the Mellon family for over 20 years before joining the foundation. “It just brings back a great memory of his Horse of the Year.”
Brough Scott and Cassidy Glascock at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg, VA.
Mill Reef: A Legacy of Heart is not the first documentary to commemorate the life of the great thoroughbred. Mill Reef: Something to Bright the Morning, directed by Kit Owens, was released in 1972, documenting the colt’s rise to fame and his remarkable recovery from the broken leg that ended his racing career as a four-year-old. Mill Reef would go on to be a leading sire before he died in 1986 at the age of 18.
The producer of the 1972 film, Brough Scott - a journalist, sports announcer, and former jockey with a long career in the UK - traveled to Upperville in May to attend a premiere of A Legacy of Heart at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg. It was the first time he had been to Oak Spring since meeting Paul Mellon there during the production of Something to Brighten the Morning some fifty years before, he said during a speech at the premiere.
“[Mill Reef] was small but he was brilliant, and beautiful, and thrilling, at one stage tragic, and ultimately, a triumphant, living work of art,” said Brough. “That’s why it’s so special for me to come back here, half a century later, and be able to introduce a young, brilliant woman who was younger even when I was when I came over here, for her film.”
Cassidy - a Marshall resident with family connections to Rokeby - was “thrilled and honored” to be able to tell Mill Reef’s story.
“I never met Mill Reef or Mr. Mellon, but I hope that we have captured their essence and retold this story in a way that would make them proud,” she said.
The Oak Spring Garden Foundation will present a free screening of Mill Reef: A Legacy of Heart at the Middleburg Community Center on June 15th at 5.30pm. No reservations are required to attend.
Banner Image: Richard Stone Reeves. “Mill Reef and Geoff Lewis.” Courtesy of National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.