Pauls Mill acquires half-interest in Mining My Own

Ben and Elaine Walden’s Pauls Mill announced Thursday that the central Kentucky farm has acquired a 50 percent interest in Mining My Own, dam of 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird and multiple Grade 1 winner Dullahan.

The 11-year-old Smart Strike mare was relocated to Pauls Mill in Versailles, Ky., on Thursday along with her 2012 Giant’s Causeway colt. Phil and Judy Needham and Bena Halecky, who boarded Mining My Own at Bona Terra Farm in Georgetown, Ky., retain the other half-interest in the mare.

“It’s a privilege to be able to buy into a mare like Mining My Own, and partnering with such great people as Phil and Judy Needham and Bena Halecky,” Pauls Mill owner Ben Walden Jr. said. “It is remarkable to think that two of her first three foals have either won or run third in the Kentucky Derby. She’s a special mare.”

Mining My Own generated considerable media attention leading up to the Kentucky Derby last spring after Dullahan won the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes and emerged as a leading Kentucky Derby contender, giving the mare a solid chance to become the first to produce two Derby winners.

The Needhams and Halecky bred both Mine That Bird, upset winner of the 2009 Derby and Canada’s champion 2-year-old male in 2008, and Dullahan in a partnership. Donegal Racing’s Dullahan finished third in the 2012 Derby and subsequently won the Grade 1 Pacific Classic in August. The Even the Score colt is slated to run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf on Saturday.

According to Walden, Mining My Own will be bred to Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes runner-up and new WinStar Farm stallion Bodemeister in 2013.

“We feel it is a beautiful mating when you consider that both Mine That Bird [by Birdstone] and Dullahan hail from the Fappiano sire line as well as Bodemeister [by Empire Maker] who I feel has a real chance to be a breed-shaping sire.”