Mill House was finally retired from racing at the end of 1967/68 National Hunt season after falling in the Whitbread Gold Cup, now the Bet365 Gold Cup, at Sandown Park. It is a testament to his ability that, six decades later, he remains the joint-fourth highest-rated steeplechaser in the history of Timeform, alongside Kauto Star and behind only Arkle, Flyingbolt and Sprinter Sacre. Standing almost 18 hands high, hence his nickname, ‘The Big Horse’, Mill House was owned, after his first three starts in his native Ireland, by retired businessman William ‘Bill’ Gollings, trained by the legendary Fulke Walwyn and ridden, for most of his career, by Willie Robertson, who was stable jockey to Walwyn at Saxon House Stables in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire.
Bred by Bridget Lawlor in Punchestown, Co. Kildare, Mill House was a stoutly-bred son of King Hal, who first attracted the attention of the wider racing public when, as a six-year-old, he beat the previous year’s runner-up, Fortria, by an impressive 12 lengths in the 1963 Cheltenham Gold Cup. He subsequently won the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury, rather fortuitously beating Arkle, who slipped badly on landing after the third-last fence, but nonetheless leading Walwyn to consider his charge ‘unbeatable’ when the pair met again in the 1964 Cheltenham.
Of course, Mill House wasn’t unbeatable, eventually going down by five lengths to Arkle, after a sustained duel, and would be beaten three more times by the horse who became known simply as ‘Himself’ over the next 18 months or so. Rematches in the Hennessy Gold Cup and Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1964/65 went the way of Arkle, by increasing margins, and even in the Gallaher Gold Cup at Sandown Park the following season – in which Mill House was reportedly back to his very best and in receipt of 16lb – he still couldn’t lay a glove on his nemesis.