Owner/Breeder Alice duPont Mills Dies at 89

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Alice duPont Mills, a longtime Thoroughbred owner and breeder as well as a lifelong philanthropist, died March 13 after a brief illness. She was 89.

Through her Hickory Tree Farm near Middleburg, Va., she campaigned such outstanding runners as Believe It, Devil's Bag, Gone West, Gorytus, Glad Rags II, and Hagley. Mrs. Mills was a member of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association and served as Trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. She was a founding member of the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center, an advisory trustee to the National Museum of Racing, and a past director of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

Mrs. Mills was honored as 1991's Outstanding Owner/Breeder by the Virginia Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, and received the Kentucky Thoroughbred Breeders' Association's Ladies' Sportsmanship Award in 1970.

A top aircraft pilot, Mrs. Mills flew an open-cockpit plane up the Amazon River in 1932, and served as a flight instructor for military pilots in New York during World War II. She was active in various conservation and environmental affairs after moving to Virginia in the late 1940s.

Mrs. Mills is survived by two children and three grandchildren.

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