Matings Mix: ‘I love being able to present the perfect mating’

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

For Sheamus Mills, it’s that time of year when the good results of a racing season roll into the newness of an upcoming spring. And it’s been a good racing season.

Mills cheered home his filly, Charm Stone (I Am Invincible), in the G3 Ottawa S. during Cup Week, and his expensive daughter of Hips Don’t Lie (NZ) (Stravinsky {USA}), the 3-year-old Humming (I Am Invincible), was a bold winner on debut in February.

He also watched the Golden Sixty (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}) caravan roll on this year around Hong Kong, and that’s been a satisfying personal agenda. Golden Sixty’s dam, Gaudeamus (USA) (Distorted Humor {USA}), was the first deal Mills ever brokered as an independent (and broke) bloodstock agent.

The year’s been good, he admits, much to the credit of good clients who keep the faith and allow him to buy the right horses at the sales.

Mills has dug deep for valuable fillies with deep bloodlines, and it’s coming good with the likes of Charm Stone and Humming, and also Thousand Guineas winner Odeum (Written Tycoon) and triple Group winner Daisies (Sebring).

These are fillies and mares that have been part of the Mills canvas for the last five years, and some of them are part of the picture this spring when it comes to the near 200 matings that he has planned for September 1 onwards.

“We’re around 170 in client mares, and I’ve got 13 of my own,” Mills said, speaking to TTR AusNZ. “It’s a really busy time of year, and when the service fees come out each year, or even beforehand, that's when we’re on to it.”

This year, service fees came thick and fast from mid-April, which means Mills has been tapping away at breeding plans for some three months. It’s exhausting but something he really enjoys.

“I genuinely get excited when I find a stallion where the mating really excites me and I can present that to the client,” he said. “I love being able to present the perfect mating, and when I say the ‘perfect mating’, it’s not only just on page, but also within that commercial realm of stallions.

“Interestingly, when look at so many mares across so many stallions, one thing I’ve found is that often successful stallions just keeping bob up with mare after mare after mare. As far as yearling sale purchases or where to send mares, I think you can identify young stallions that are a good chance of success because I’ve found that genetically they just keep matching to your mares.

“At times it can happen so often that your clients end up thinking you must have shares in the stallion.”

For Mills, there are a number of Australian stallions that fall into that basket. Hanseatic is one, who is standing his third book at Rosemont this year for $17,600 (inc GST). This horse is a son of Street Boss (USA) now competing with Anamoe as the only sons of Street Boss at stud in Australia.

“As far as value goes, Hanseatic comes up as a good match for a lot of mares,” Mills said. “He’s probably a prime example because, like any stallion, the third and fourth seasons are a tricky time to use them commercially. A lot of people will go for something a little more proven, but if you believe in genetics and pedigrees, he is a stallion that comes up at a value price as a good match for a lot of mares.”

Mills didn’t rush into international matings this year. Despite the chatter around Gun Runner (USA), Siyouni (Fr), Lope De Vega (Ire) and the likes of Kingman (GB) and Frankel (GB) standing to Southern Hemisphere schedules, he said the costs of travel are still prohibitive.

“There’s certainly an interest,” Mills said. “But the difficulty is that travel prices make it very difficult to use those sorts of stallions with Australian-based mares. I’ve found that, even with the top-quality stock I manage, the idea of shipping to the Northern Hemisphere still hasn’t quite won the day.

“We’ve certainly thought about it but, in the end, the Australian stallions have won out. I’ve found with my clients, if they’re going to use a Northern Hemisphere-based stallion, it would generally be when they’re purchasing a mare locally from England, Ireland, America or wherever.”

In this respect, Mills said the old chestnut of ‘too much Danehill’ is flying less and less these days, purely because outcross stallions are popping up regularly and with great success, such as Justify (USA) by Scat Daddy (USA).

“We get the Deep Fields and horses like Justify and Harry Angel,” he said. “The outcrosses bob up, and I feel content that there’s enough options in Australia without going too far and wide and adding to your cost base.”

The matings

Of the long list of mares that Mills has mapped for the upcoming spring, he has shared a number with us and all are booked to commercial, viable sires.

High on the list is the Dane Shadow mare Segenhoe Valley, who has already produced the stakes winner Shelby Cobra by Toronado (Ire), and the promising juvenile winner Shesallshenanigans, also by Toronado. As a result, Mills is sending Segenhoe Valley back to Toronado in what is probably a straightforward decision.

“This mare, having previously gone to Toronado to produce Shelby Cobra and Shesallshenanigans, was a fairly obvious one,” he said. “It’s a noted nick, and that word has a few different connotations but, in the case of Segenhoe Valley, it really has worked with that particualr stallion.”

The 5-year-old mare Odeum, on the other hand, is a relatively clean slate. She is expecting her first foal by I Am Invincible this spring, and she is booked back to that stallion again.

“Odeum is an interesting one for me,” Mills said. “She’s actually a mare that has huge commercial appeal (as a G1 Thousand Guineas winner), and she’s a young mare that we’re trying to set up. For her, the question is with that massive commercial appeal, do you breed the best possible horse you can for her, or follow commercial appeal?

“I Am Invincible, thankfully for us, came up pretty well for her because sometimes that commercial appeal can go hand-in-hand with trying to produce a good horse. That I Am Invincible colt from Booker at the Magic Millions this year was one that I was really interested to see this year because Booker, like Odeum, is by Written Tycoon.”

The colt in question sold for $2.5 million in January at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, consigned by Coolmore and bought by Ciaron Maher Bloodstock. It bodes well for Odeum that it’s a quality-laden cross of Australia’s leading stallion over Written Tycoon mares.

Mills also has the likes of stakes winner Persuader (Zoustar) going to Justify, and this mare is a full sister to the Group 1 winner Zougotcha, and a half-sister to the stakes winner The Actuary (Sebring). It’s a strong family, as is that of the imported mare Frankel At Ascot (Fr) (Frankel {GB}), whom Mills has booked to Russian Revolution.

This mare raced in America when trained by Mark Casse and she’s yet to arrive in Australia. Her Russian Revolution pairing is interesting because that stallion, himself, is from an American mare.

Gallery: Some of the matings for Sheamus Mills' mares

Along the same lines, Queen Of Shades (USA) is an American-bred mare that Mills has booked to Zoustar. She also hasn’t arrived in Australia and was a purchase by Mills last year at the Fasig-Tipton Summer Horses of Racing Age. He paid US$70,000 (AU$103,000) when bought from Vinery as a sales agent.

Queen Of Shades is from the Hard Spun (USA) mare Last Standing (USA), and this is the immediate family of the French stakes winner Season’s Greetings (Ire) (Ezzoud {Ire}) and her Group 1-winning daughter Grace Hall (USA) (Empire Maker {USA}).

More locally, Mills is sending the Star Witness mare Minetti to Better Than Ready.

“He’s a stallion I’ve got a lot of time for,” the bloodstock agent said. “I love when a stallion has already worked on a page, and Minetti’s half-sister is the dam of Better Get Set, a stakes winner.”

Better Get Set won the Listed Just Now Quality S. last year, bred by Lyndhurst Stud, and both her dam, Ridolfi (Fastnet Rock), and Minetti are daughters of the Group 2 winner La Italia (NZ) (Stravinsky {USA}).

Whipping in our examples are the Redoute’s Choice mare Selfless, who is booked to Maurice (Jpn) on just her second cover, a cross that has produced the likes of Hitotsu, and the Sebring mare See Me Exceed, who is booked to Extreme Choice.

Bettering the breed or feeding the sale ring?

For Mills, a lot of the usual requirements come into play when considering the merit of a mating. For instance, Persuader’s first foal last spring by I Am Invincible was on the smaller side, so using Justify, who is a bigger stallion, made sense.

However, Mills also admits that the struggle in modern breeding, especially in Australia, is the delicate balance between breeding the best racehorse possible and meeting the yearling market. Sometimes, they don’t marry up and deciding which to prioritise is a challenge.

“My theory is that the best long-term commercial success you’ll have with a mare is producing good racehorses,” Mills said. “Essentially, you try to do a mating that will produce a good racehorse, but with some respect to the breeder staying viable in the sale ring.”

So where does Mills draw the line between fashion and good breeding?

“It’s a delicate balance but I think the system in Australia is part of the problem,” he said. “There are other jurisdictions in the world where breeders can breed for the betterment of the mare, not the sale ring. Australians are up against the wall somewhat as far as needing to breed something for the sale ring for breeders to stay viable, and I find that tricky.

“The system in Australia doesn’t necessarily better the breed. I feel like a lot of people have to breed for the sale ring, which may not be the best mating for their mare but it keeps them in the game.”

Mills used the example of stallion books filling almost immediately after service fees are announced. He said there’s no way that 150 to 200 people have sat down and worked out an in-depth mating on most mares within days of service fees landing.

“Obviously, one of the impediments of Australians bettering the thoroughbred breed is that the commercial realities insist breeders go for fashion, rather than a good mating,” he said.

To combat this, Mills tries to use as wide a base of commercial stallions as he can in breeding plans, to keep the depth of bloodlines. He said you can then walk the tightrope of commercial appeal and long-term success of a good mare.

“Realistically, if a mare gets a stakes winner in her first four or five foals, the commercial success will come,” Mills said. “If you believe in the mare and you can mate her early as much as you can for the racetrack, and not the sale ring, the sale ring success will follow.”

Table: Some of the matings Sheamus Mills is planning for the 2023 season