Our History
Alice Chandler established Mill Ridge in 1962 and has been raising and selling racehorses on the same land at 2800 Bowman Mill Road in Lexington, Kentucky ever since.
From day one, Mill Ridge has benefitted from hard-working and passionate employees. It all started with three loyal employees who followed Alice Chandler from her father’s Beaumont Farm in 1962; Eugene Burgan, Henry Jackson, and Joe Bates.
This team, along with manager Bill Shorter, was the very beginning of Mill Ridge Farm and was vital to the farm’s success over the next decade.
Integral to Mill Ridge and its growth in the 1970s and 1980s was a core group of people. First was Duncan Macdonald, who came from England to America in 1978. He served as Mill Ridge’s Farm Manager until 2016. Bill Thomason joined the Mill Ridge team in 1980 as Financial and Administrative Manager and worked under Alice for 28 years before joining Keeneland in 2010, where he became President and CEO in 2012. Dr. Ed Fallon and his Hagyard-Davidson-McGee veterinary practices were instrumental in the early days and his protégé Stuart Brown took over that responsibility before joining Keeneland in July 2020. The original blacksmith, Harry McKenna, and his blacksmith team branched down to Charlie Biancke, who had worked with Mill Ridge for more than 30 years.
Alice’s sons Mike, Reynolds, and Headley grew up on the farm and became the fabric of its existence. While Mike chose to train and associate with great horseman like Frank Whitley, Reynolds stayed with the farm and helped execute a vision for its future. His assistance in recruiting DIESIS and GONE WEST as stallions was vital in providing international awareness and purpose. Likewise, Headley and his contribution through Nicoma Bloodstock and its client successes added to the Mill Ridge acclaim.
John Chandler was instrumental with his veterinary background, expertise, and a connection to so many European clients.
More vital members of the Mill Ridge team joined in the 1980s. Bayne Welker joined the team in 2000s and assisted with sales before joining Fasig-Tipton. Mary Miller served as Equine Operations Coordinator from 1990 until retiring in 2020. Kim Poulin joined Mill Ridge in 1993 and took over the Equine Operations role upon Mary’s retirement. Lori Bessenbacher began working with our broodmares in 2002 and now is our assistant broodmare manager. Marc Richardson rejoined Mill Ridge in 2010 as yearling manager and assumed the role of farm manager in 2016 upon Duncan Macdonald’s retirement. In 2021, Jeremy Harlow joined the Mill Ridge team and is currently our yearling manager.
Price Headley Bell Jr.
Price Bell began his working life in the stables of Mill Ridge Farm, cleaning stalls, turning out horses, and learning the ins-and-outs of horse farm life as a seventh grader. He continued to work summers at Mill Ridge throughout his teenage years. Today, as General Manager, you’ll still often find Price in muddy boots and a Mill Ridge cap, walking the grounds of the farm.
Price is a 2000 Graduate of the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, where he served as Head Monitor of the school.
He then earned his BS in Economics from Vanderbilt University in 2004, and later his MBA from Vanderbilt Owens School of Business in 2011.
He began a career in real estate in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2005 for Parkway Properties and soon transferred to the Nashville, Tennessee market. Once in Nashville, Price served on the Executive Committee of the Nashville Downtown Partnership for two years and was influential in the development of the Gulch Business Improvement District (GBID). He was also a member of the Education Committee for the Nashville Chamber of Commerce for two years.
In late 2007, he left Parkway Properties for DZL Management, a Nashville real estate investment, management, and development company dedicated to adaptive reuse neighborhood development.
In 2011 he returned to his hometown to begin working for the family businesses, Mill Ridge Farm and Nicoma Bloodstock as a bloodstock agent. In 2020, he was named General Manager of Mill Ridge.
Once reinvested in Mill Ridge and Lexington’s civic scene, Price applied his education and experience to improving Lexington and growing Mill Ridge. He serves on several nonprofit boards in Lexington for causes he cares about.
Price Headley Bell
Headley Bell has been instrumental in the success of Mill Ridge Farm over the past several decades, serving as Managing Partner of Mill Ridge and as the primary bloodstock agent of Nicoma Bloodstock, the consulting arm of Mill Ridge Farm.
Educated at Woodberry Forest in Virginia and Vanderbilt University, Headley Bell founded Nicoma Bloodstock in 1979. He had early success with a mating in 1983, producing TREMPOLINO, who won France’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe (G1) in 1987 and was recognized as Champion Three-Year-Old. In 1987, another successful mating produced SUAVE DANCER, who went on to win the 1991 Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe (G1) in 1991 and was recognized as French and Irish Highweight.
Other highlights of Headley’s career with Nicoma Bloodstock include:
SEIZE THE GREY— Mated for Jamm Ltd, 2024 Preakness Stakes (G1) winner.
BRICKS AND MORTAR—Mated for George Strawbridge, Jr. 2019 Horse of the Year and multiple G1 winner.
OSCAR PERFORMANCE—Mated for John and Jerry Amerman, 2017 Winner Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1) and winner of the 2017 Belmont Derby Invitational (G1). Now standing stud at Mill Ridge Farm.
HAVRE DE GRACE—2011 Horse of the Year. HAVRE DE GRACE was foaled at Mill Ridge Farm for Mrs. Nancy Dillman and sold as a yearling at Keeneland. She went on to earn over $2,000,000.
STREET SENSE—Mated for Jim Tafel, 2007 Winner of the Kentucky Derby, 2006 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Champion Two-Year-Old.
BARBARO—Mated for Roy and Gretchen Jackson, 2006 Winner of the Kentucky Derby
Alice Headley Chandler
In 1962, Alice’s father, Hal Price Headley died and bequeathed to her four mares and 286 acres of the Beaumont Farm, with which she founded Mill Ridge Farm.
In 1968, Chandler became the first American woman to breed an Epsom Derby winner who was sold at auction, SIR IVOR, a stallion descended from ALCIBIADES, a champion bred by Chandler’s father in 1927. Sir Ivor was sold to Raymond Guest, an American businessman and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, at Keeneland in 1966 for $42,000. After winning several major European races, Chandler’s stallion influenced a shift in horse sales, emphasizing the U.S. commercial market and Keeneland, specifically.
Mill Ridge Farm has raised and sold several notable horses since its founding, to include 2001 Horse of the Year POINT GIVEN, 2011 Horse of the Year HAVRE DR GRACE, and 2005 Kentucky Derby winner GIACOMO. Since 2000, Mill Ridge Farm has raised or sold seven Breeders’ Cup winners and 36 Grade 1 winners.
Chandler’s most prestigious honor is her induction into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2020 under the category of “Pillars of the Turf.” Her father was inducted only two years prior in 2018.
Chandler became a member of Keeneland’s Button Club in 2012, an award that honors individuals/farms who have “played a prominent role in the growth of the Keeneland Association.”
In 2008, Chandler was given the Eclipse Award of Merit, one of the industry’s highest honors, presented for “displaying outstanding lifetime achievement in, and service to, the Thoroughbred industry.”
In 2005, Chandler was the Honor Guest for the Thoroughbred Club of America’s Annual Testimonial Dinner, an event that honors “outstanding figures of the turf world.”
Hal Price Headley
Beaumont Farm’s Hal Price Headley was perhaps the most influential player in bringing the dream of Keeneland Race Track to existence in 1936, and served as its President from that time until 1951.
The land that became Beaumont Farm was purchased by George Washington Headley in 1880, and handed down to his son, Hal Petit Headley. Hal Price Headley was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1888 and went on to study at Princeton University before returning to Beaumont Farm following his father’s stroke.
Once his boots were back on the familiar soil of Central Kentucky, Headley went on to immerse himself in the business of Beaumont Farm, establishing Keeneland as a front-runner in the world of thoroughbred horse racing, and serving as the first President of the Thoroughbred Horse Association.
The most notable horses bred by Hal Price Headley include ALCIBIADES, APOGEE, MENOW, and ASKMEKNOW among a total of 88 Grade States winners from 1916 to 1953.
Upon his death in 1962, The Blood-Horse stated: “In all-around mastery of the various aspects of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, Hal Price Headley had no equal among his contemporaries.” Alice Headley Chandler, his daughter, then inherited 286 acres and four broodmares. From this new beginning came Mill Ridge Farm.
In 2018, he was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame as a Pillar of the Turf.