Percy Miller was a successful businessman and a hobby breeder. In 1914, with half a dozen mares, he decided to try commercial thoroughbred production and purchased the cattle property Kia-Ora from the established Segenhoe Stud, just east of Scone. With manager Bert Riddle he set about developing Kia-Ora as a fully operational horse stud and by 1917 was able to offer two yearlings at the Sydney Easter Sales; the start of a sustained and most remarkable breeding record. In the same year a horse called Magpie ran second in the English 2000 Guineas and eventually came to Australia where he was acquired as a stallion by Percy Miller.
Over the next decade, Magpie became one of Australia's leading sires producing many feature race winners at Kia-Ora including Windbag, Amounis and Talking. This became the pattern at Kia-Ora with a succession of successful sires standing at the stud farm. Most notable of these were Midstream and Delville Wood who also became premiership winning sires and were also responsible for such champions as Shannon, Delta, Hydrogen and Evening Peal.
They were to leave a legacy in a superb brand of brood mares, but what was most remarkable about the record of Kia-Ora was the high percentage of winners that came off the property and the huge numbers of well grown yearlings that were sold off the stud.
This number peaked with 105 offered at the 1941 Sydney Easter Sales, taking the total 2,862 yearlings presented for sale between 1917 and 1949. Bert Riddle was the manager through all these years but on his death in 1952, four years after Percy Miller, the stud was cut back by the family and finally dispersed in May 1959.
Miller was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.
Image source: