Aquis Farm to take up residence at Gooree Park
New South Wales arm of breeding and racing empire undergoes significant restructure
Aquis Farm, a three-state breeding and racing operation with an enormous bloodstock portfolio, which includes reigning Golden Slipper winner Farnan (Not A Single Doubt), has made the significant decision to relocate its NSW headquarters from the thoroughbred heartland of the Hunter Valley to the famed Gooree Park Stud in the state’s central west.
Its eight-strong NSW stallion roster, headed by first season pin-up Pierata (Pierro) and the likes of Santos (I Am Invincible) and Divine Prophet (Choisir), will soon be based at the renowned property founded by the late Filipino billionaire Eduardo Cojuangco in 1979.
The development will see Aquis Farm continue to manage the stallion enterprise from Mudgee, but Gooree Park Stud’s Andrew Baddock will oversee the broodmares, weanlings and yearlings on its behalf.
“It’s a great opportunity for Aquis to be able to go out to a property like Gooree which hasn’t had a lot of stock on it for a while,” Aquis Farm chief executive Tony “Tubba” Williams told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“The stallion complex is exceptionally good. It was originally built by Mr Cojuangco and the farm itself is renowned for breeding good horses and that has been under the tutelage of Andrew Baddock.”
Aquis Farm, which started with and still runs a stud at Canungra in the Gold Coast hinterland, had leased Emirates Park since April 2017 as the reach of the Fung family owned business on the Australian racing and breeding industry began to take hold.
Aquis also leases a property, which was formerly used by Woodside Park Stud, near Seymour in Victoria where its growing Victorian stallion roster will stand.
One of the ramifications of the decision to outsource the care of its NSW-based stock to Gooree and vacate the Emirates Park-owned property is that a number of Murrurundi-based Aquis Farm employees will be retrenched.
However, Aquis Farm is attempting to relocate some affected staff to its interstate bases or to Gooree Park, while it is also assisting those impacted by trying to place them with rival stud farms.
Aquis Farm managing director Shane McGrath is confident about the stud’s prospects in terms of its stallion division as well as utilising the quality and proven land to grow out horses at Gooree.
“I’m really excited about it and it’s been hard to keep it under wraps,” McGrath said.
“I went across to the farm with Andrew and I was amazed by the facilities, you can see why they have developed so many good horses.”
Aquis Farm has eight lots consigned under its own banner at this week’s Australian Weanling Sale and a large number of mares, weanlings and yearlings at the upcoming Magic Millions Gold Coast National Sale.
Longer term, how the restructure will impact Aquis’ plans to prepare and sell stock at broodmare, weanling and yearling sales in the future is yet to be decided.
“Going forward, it is still working out how we manage it in respect of who will prepare them, who will consign them or whether we do it ourselves,” Williams said.
“It’s a work in progress, put it that way. We have a property in Queensland, we lease a property in Victoria and horses are prepared out of Queensland but realistically that is still to be decided exactly how we do that.”
Gooree Park’s revered reputation of producing high-class racehorses has been earned over the past four decades. Some of the standouts to be raised at Mudgee include Group 1 winners such as Desert War (Desert King), Laser Hawk (Artie Schiller), Smart Missile (Fastnet Rock) and Your Song (Fastnet Rock).
Gooree has also been involved in the careers of stallions Northern Meteor (Encosta De Lago), Hallowed Crown (Street Sense) and Needs Further (Encosta De Lago) who this year will stand at Aquis Farm’s Victorian stud.
Baddock believes the alliance with Aquis Farm shores up the Gooree Park Stud business which has recently undergone its own restructure in recent months.
“We’ve been undergoing a well-known change in direction and we’ve been looking for business since the passing of Mr Cojuangco and out of the blue comes Aquis and we’re thrilled to have them on board,” Baddock said.
“I had approached Aquis about business, but I approached just about every decent farm in the country.
“I’ve known Shane and Tubba for a long time and they said, ‘look, keep in touch and we might be able to do something down the track’, but I certainly had no inkling this would come about.”
Gooree Park will retain 20 of its own broodmares whilst clients who had recently come on board will also be looked after, but with Aquis’ arrival the “no vacancy” sign has gone up.
“There are 1000 acres on the stud, 600 acres in the pre-training and spelling complex and we have got pastoral and grapes, so the whole lot is about 25,000 acres – it’s a big holding,” Baddock said.
“The yearling paddocks average about 50 acres in size and they are big, undulating paddocks and they tend to produce a good, sound, tough horse.”
Emirates Park general manager Bryan Carlson yesterday chose not to comment about the sudden move of its tenant and what the immediate future holds for the property, owned by His Excellency Nasser Lootah.
Japanese stallions to miss southern hemisphere season
Two Japanese stallions destined for Australia and New Zealand this year have been stranded in their home country and will not be standing in the southern hemisphere this year in the latest fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic.
Victoria’s Chatswood Stud was set to stand record-breaking dual Grade 1 winner Al Ain for the first time this year while another son of Japan’s champion stallion, Deep Impact, in Satono Aladdin was to return to New Zealand’s Rich Hill Stud for his third season but the Covid-19 crisis has ended those plans.
At this stage, shuttle stallions from Europe and the US remain scheduled to land in Australia later this month but the current situation could stop horses from Japan potentially targeting the Melbourne spring carnival.
International Racehorse Transport’s Chris Burke yesterday confirmed that Japanese air authorities did not permit grooms to be on the cargo planes with the horses that would have allowed them to fly to Australia.
“We did have an option of going via Europe but the studs in Japan didn’t want to have that option. There’s currently no direct flights that we can get the horses down here on due to the restrictions on grooms travelling out of Japan,” Burke said.
“Some of the airlines have put mitigation measures in place, so it does allow staff to travel, but unfortunately the airline service out of Japan hasn’t got any of those in place, so that’s what’s caused it.
“The cargo aircraft that leave from Japan on an acceptable route for quarantine here are currently not taking any other people other than airline-employed flight crew.”
Chatswood Stud’s Nic Willis was dejected yesterday after learning that Al Ain, an unbeaten juvenile in Japan who claimed the Satsuko Sho (Gr 1, 2000m) in record time, would not be able to shuttle.
“It’s very disappointing and we’re very flat about it given how well received he’d been,” Willis said.
“We would have done very well out of him as we’d had quite a few mares and new clients who hadn’t booked with us before, so we were very excited.
“We’d been working on the deal from January until last month when the announcement was made. It was all I’d been thinking about.”
Chatswood Stud had secured Al Ain to stand alongside Reward For Effort (Exceed And Excel) and Inference (So You Think) this year.
“We will readdress next year and aim to get him back,” Willis said.
“The owners in Japan were very happy with us. We were keeping them up to date with the bookings and what mares he’d attracted. It’s pretty tough.”
Rich Hill Stud’s John Thompson was realistic about the situation and hoped to be able to discuss options with many of the mare owners who had booked into the Yasuda Kinen Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) winner this year.
“What can you do? Because of all the passenger planes not being able to fly, airfreight is at a real premium,” Thompson said.
“We still have got four other nice stallions here, so it’s not the end of the world for us, whereas for Chatswood it’s their first season with the horse.”
Rich Hill Stud has the emerging Proisir (Choisir), Vadamos (Monsun), Ace High (High Chaparral) and Shocking (Street Cry) on its roster.
Earlier this year, Arrowfield Stud in conjunction with Shadai Stallion Station elected not to shuttle its Japanese contingent including Maurice (Screen Hero) due to the ongoing uncertainty caused by the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Coolmore’s shuttle stallions, including the high-profile American Triple Crown winners American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile) and Justify (Scat Daddy), and Godolphin’s shipment headed by Australian champion sire Exceed And Excel (Danehill) are scheduled to travel to Australia on July 21.
Flights carrying stallions such as Widden Stud’s Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and Swettenham Stud’s Toronado (High Chaparral) will land a week later if current plans are not altered.
Burke said: “Touch wood, everything is still in place for them to travel. Obviously the border restrictions between NSW and Victoria that have just been introduced will create some more complications as far as that’s concerned in terms of getting staff caring for the horses.
“But the important thing is to get the horses here first and then we can work through those logistics afterwards.”
The IRT managing director admitted to constant challenges being faced by the company attempting to transport horses around the world during the pandemic.
“It’s understandable with everything that’s going on, but the tough thing is literally how fluid it is,” he said.
“What I had planned Saturday has already changed on Sunday and it’s changed again at one o’clock on Monday. We’re constantly on notice trying to adapt as we have to go keep things safe.
“Each time we face a hurdle we’re trying to find a safe and sensible solution to that hurdle.”
As for any Japanese horses being able to contest this year’s Melbourne spring carnival, Burke indicated that there would need to be a change of policy,
“We have got a bit more time on our side, but it would be similar where an airline would need to come on board to allow that to occur also,” he said.