He’s the guy whose name has become synonymous with the purchase of expensive fillies in Australia in recent years and if you’ve ever wondered about the end game for Sheamus Mills and his investors read on.
Back in 2022 when Victorian bloodstock agent Sheamus Mills purchased Charm Stone as a yearling for $1.55million he said in an interview - “We firmly believe that over the next five to 10 years we’ll have a program in place that makes all these things make sense."
With Charm Stone winning the Group I SAJC Robert Sangster Stakes on Saturday we thought now was a good time to have Sheamus Mills as our guest this week on the Tara Talks Racing podcast as we check in on how that ‘program’ is progressing in a wide ranging chat that covers plenty of ground.
Sheamus talked about his early days in racing and breeding before deciding to have a crack as a bloodstock agent.
“I did a bit of everything I managed jockeys, did journalism, worked on stud farms, worked in racing stables and learned so much in my time working with Mick Price,” he said.
“I thought I had a pretty a pretty good grounding as far as my education went, but unfortunately for me, I was ahead of my time and the first thing I did after I left Mick was move to England with the idea to buy tried horses to sell back to Australia.
“I was terribly unsuccessful at it because nobody wanted to buy, would you believe? I know it sounds ridiculous given the enormous influx of these horses nowadays, but when I went up there it was like I was like selling ice to the Eskimos.
“It didn't work, so I switched to fillies and mares and trying to sell breeding prospects back to Australia.
“That was a bit more successful and the first horse I sold was actually Gaudeamus, who ended up being the dam of Golden Sixty.”
Fast forward to now and Sheamus is managing and part-owning an elite portfolio of fillies and mares with some of the earlier acquisitions such as Group I MRC Thousand Guineas winner Odeum moving into the next stage of their life as broodmares.
These mares are kept at Yarraman Park and they consigned the first foal of Odeum, a colt by I Am Invincible to Inglis Easter this year where he sold for $700,000 to Waller Racing/ Mulcaster Bloodstock.
Odeum has had a textbook start to her stud career and had another colt last year by I Am Invincible and is now in foal to Extreme Choice, a fact that has made Sheamus pretty happy to say the least!
Do yourself a favour as they say and have a listen to this week’s podcast!
