29th June 2009 - Mill Reef - Brough Scott

The word that comes through from watching this film is “unbelievable”. It applies first and foremost to the idea that in 1971, there could be another Derby winner worthy of consideration as “Horse of The Century” just one year after Nijinsky and three after Sir Ivor. And, even less credible, the thought that in the very same crop as Mill Reef there could be, in Brigadier Gerard, another colt who was actually his superior – at least at a mile.

But, even as producer of the film, there is much else that I can still hardly believe today. Did Mill Reef really win the Gimcrack (his 4th race as a two year old) by ten lengths and the Ganay (his first as four year old) by fifteen? When he broke his leg, was his seven hour surgery really carried out on a makeshift operating table set up above straw bales in the colour room at Kingsclere? And did Albert Finney really wander up Wardour Street with me quite unrecognized when, as narrator, he came to put such a golden but earthy Lancashire ring to the incomparable words of McIlvanney ?

Of course the Mill Reef injury, in August 1972 after a summer blighted first by a virus and then by a pulled muscle, changed the whole structure of the film. The original concept was for us to portray the whole build up to “The Race of the Century”, the Mill Reef – Brigadier Gerard rematch scheduled for the Eclipse Stakes in July. When that was off we had hoped to refocus on Mill Reef’s tilt at a second Arc. But once he got into the home made casualty ward all we prayed for was not be attempting a posthumous tribute.

With his recovery came new inspiration. For the public and private reaction to the little Derby winner’s plight was so moving that we resolved to use this film to explore how a great horse brings different strands of people and places and history together. We had splendid footage of his Derby, not so good of his previous races and of the Arc, but brilliant pictures of the Ganay and of his virus-hit struggle to win the Coronation Cup. We had terrific access to everything at Kingsclere and lovely shots of Mill Reef in training. But then we come to another “unbelievable”. Did we really get permission to film all of owner Paul Mellon’s priceless pictures and Degas ballet dancers as well as his horses when we went to his Rokeby Stud in Virginia?

With all this we could set the film off on its journey, and the tone was set by a superb Finney/McIlvanney opening as the camera looked out from Paul Mellon’s treeside seat at Rokeby. “A great horse may be bred out of the dreams of one man,” goes the narration, “but before he’s through he has reached into the imagination of many people. They celebrate his great moments and are saddened by his misfortune. When it’s over they wonder how they came to be so stirred by an animal. All they can be sure of is that the horse brought them something – a kind of gift.”

It is an unashamedly lyrical treatment which may occasionally, as in the slow musical montage around Chantilly, border on self indulgence. But you would need a heart of stone not to be lifted when we first see Mill Reef’s dam Milan Mill gallop off to spark a specially written song with its swirling images of thoroughbred magic at Rokeby. And you will need a hankie when Mill Reef finally hobbles out of the operating theatre, the music swells and Albert says very softly “plaster casts come hardest to those that have had wings on their heels.”

But you can also see what a marvel Mill Reef was on the racetrack. He may not have had the rocket acceleration of Sir Ivor, nor the coasting majesty of Nijinsky, but then neither of them had quite his versatility. Mill Reef could skim through the mud at York and Longchamp, but on fast going set track records in both the Eclipse and the Arc. This was because, even at the walk, he had the most perfect action of any horse I have ever seen and one of the abiding delights of the film is that we had a close up camera to catch him floating off to the start in the Ganay. “If he galloped on water,” says the commentary, “he would hardly make a ripple.”

His diminutive stature, at barely 15-2 hands almost two sizes smaller than the massive Sir Ivor and Nijinsky, only added to his attraction. There was something of the David and Goliath about him. When the little colt whizzed up in the Coventry at Royal Ascot and John Oaksey described him as “the best two year old I have ever seen” most people imagined that precocity would be his bent. When he got beaten by Brigadier Gerard in the Guineas many were disappointed and plenty doubted he would stay a mile and a half. He may not have won the Derby quite as stylishly as the other two greats but in it, as in every one of his 12 victories he was actually increasing his advantage in the last hundred yards. Then as now, the world loved a little trier.

We got close to him and to those around him: Ian Balding, Geoff Lewis, Paul Mellon, Bill Palmer the Head Lad, Tom Reilly the blacksmith and all the other kids and staff at Kingclere. But there is some personal pride in finding that the figure we still empathise with most in the film is John Hallum, the quiet, shy, skilled stableman who was on Mill Reef’s back that fateful August morning and was at his side in the critical days of recovery just as he had been in smiling glory of Ascot, Epsom and Longchamp.

It is John who leads Mill Reef to his new home at the National Stud and then, in a poignant echo of director Kit Owens’ similar treatment of a triumphant cigar-smoking Piggott walking past us in Washington, it is sad faced John Hallum who takes us out of the story and leaves the film with its title. “Getting up at dawn will be that much harder at Kingsclere” says Albert before adding for John and for all of us, “that Mill Reef, he was Something To Brighten The Morning.”

Unbelievable? You might think so, but see this and you will believe too.