Mills: Deauville To Down Under

Deauville, FRANCE–Bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills woke up with some good news on Sunday as Australian-bred Mr Stunning (Aus) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) won the G1 Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin. Not that he was involved in that horse in any way but that this success was another hint that what he was busy doing in Deauville this weekend was actually the right thing to do.
Mr Stunning's dam, With Fervour, a Dayjur mare bred in the U.S. by George Strawbridge, had been sold in foal at Tattersalls after a few placings in France under the care of trainer Jonathan Pease. Bred a few years later to Exceed and Excel in Australia, she gave birth to Mr Stunning, who is now a leading sprinter in Hong Kong.
That is exactly the type of result Mills has been aspiring to replicate since his first visit to the Arqana December Breeding Stock Sale in Deauville in 2013.
On the first day of the 2017 edition, on Saturday, he ended up buying four mares in Deauville: lot 119, the unraced Amberdeen (Fr) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) for €50,000; lot 149, Belfast (Fr) (Manduro {Ger}) for €35,000; lot 212, the stakes-placed Bouquet de Flores (Street Cry {Ire}) for €160,000; and lot 227, Hidden Gem (GB) (Shamardal) in foal to Siyouni (Fr) on Southern Hemisphere time for €40,000.
“They are all examples of what we look for,” said Mills. “For instance, I paid €50,000 for an Exceed and Excel mare consigned by the Aga Khan Studs. Her dam is a sister to a Linamix mare who foaled a Snitzel stakes winner at two in Australia. It's a pedigree people in Australia would understand. If you flip through the catalogue, you find quite a bit of Australian pedigrees that are more familiar to an Australian audience. My clients are commercial breeders who need to make the figures work. There are lots of people in Europe who can afford to buy traditional bloodlines, and I would love to do that, I'd love to go to Tattersalls with that sort of budget, but I simply don't [have it]. I bought a horse out in Maryland last week, an Elusive Quality filly for $25,000. It's a very good price. I look everywhere in the world for opportunities.”
Yet, Mills's interest in European sales has grown in the last few years as the need for alternative bloodlines in Australia has become more pressing, partly because of the dominance of Danehill as a sire of sires. Outcross material and conformation types matching the Australasian speedy type are needed and Deauville, amongst other places, fits the bill. It also goes down to the way the Thoroughbred industry is conducted in Australia.
“We put a great percentage of our foal crop through the sales,” Mills. “More than any country in the world, I think. So most Australian breeders are commercial breeders and the betterment of the breed is another concern altogether. I manage 220 mares for about 15 clients in New South Wales and Victoria. I would say that fewer than 20 of their offspring would not be up for sale. They are meant to better the breed and that's what I am looking for around here in Europe. In Europe, there is a greater appreciation for the depth of pedigrees. People celebrate the great bloodlines crafted by the likes of Juddmonte or the Aga Khan, they marvel at these families and we do whatever we can to get into them. It takes quite a bankroll to stand by your convictions, and a few generations to build a breeding program before you find out if you're right or wrong. Yet, a few breeders Down Under are lucky enough to be in a position to take the chance. They will breed across the whole spectrum but they will choose sires purely for the purpose of racetrack success, whereas a lot of breeders will pick them according to a commercial value.”
A paradox in Australian racing has also prompted a growing interest in overseas bloodlines. Even though speed and precocity abound in the local breed, “classic” or colonial horse racing is still very much promoted Down Under, and horses to succeed in such conditions do not abound.
“The statistics might have changed a little bit but there used to be about a third of our horses racing beyond the mile, where 70% of our prizemoney is,” Mills said. “Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, all the Cups and Derbies and Oaks, you name it. In any handicap raced over 10 furlongs or more, you have six or seven runners. Lots of opportunities there. We just don't breed these horses. We don't have the broodmares to produce those horses. So we have to find them elsewhere.”
Four years after his first visit to Normandy, Mills and his partners are about to collect their first harvest as two yearlings bred out of French mares are in the Magic Millions catalogue in January.
“Both are French mares by Tamayuz and Elusive City I bought here from Shadwell and Etreham,” he said. “We bred them to Not a Single Doubt and Dissident. They have mile pedigrees. I wouldn't buy a maiden mare that's won over too long a distance because we'd get either a sprinter without any turn of foot or a stayer with no stamina. Either way, it doesn't look good.”
It is again all about the right balance as Mills works to better his native Australia's breeding without ignoring a rightful commercial sense.