Lakewood Stud banner reborn as Hickmott eyes future
The rich history of the picturesque South Australian property will continue with young trainer and bloodstock agent setting up shop
One of South Australia’s most historic farms – known at various times as Paumah Stud, Lakewood Stud, Rivers End Stud and Rosden Park, among others – has been rejuvenated as a training centre with prominent trainer and bloodstock agent Michael Hickmott purchasing the property and incorporating the Wellington site into his operation.
The 800-acre property, situated on the banks of Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the Murray River, came to prominence as Paumah Stud in the 1980s when administered by Florian and Marta Stumpf, before the couple sold the farm to Peter and Pauline Liston in 1998.
Renamed Lakewood Stud, it became one of South Australia’s best-known breeding operations before the Listons moved back to Victoria to establish Three Bridges Thoroughbreds.
Purchased by Louie Elia in 2005, the property went through a quiet period as Rivers End Stud, although activity did increase in the years before it was sold to Brenton Scott in 2012. Its most recent iteration, under Scott’s ownership, has been as Rosden Park, but Hickmott confirmed that the property would return to the Lakewood banner now that he and his wife Jade hold the keys.
“This is a property I admired and idolised from childhood, when it was under the ownership of Peter and Pauline Liston,” Hickmott told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. “You’d go to the stallion days and the open days and you’d just leave in awe. It’s just a beautiful property.
“It has been under private ownership and operation now for the past decade or so. Unfortunately, it lost a little bit of its lustre right after the Listons left, but Brenton is a smart guy and he bought it, poking along with it. He’s kept it as a private facility for the past eight years.
“It was at the Adelaide yearling sales last year that Brenton mentioned in passing to my wife and I that he’d consider selling it and we were delighted to work with him to secure the property. Pretty much, from there, my plan for the last 12 months has been making it happen, getting some more sales over the line and getting it all together.”
The property, as it stands, boasts a fully-equipped training centre, agistment farm and stud complex. At Hickmott’s disposal will be two training tracks, more than 50 boxes and irrigated spelling paddocks to accommodate more than 70 horses, and he is continuing to upgrade and expand the facilities at a rapid rate.
“So many of the best trainers around Australia are operating off their own properties,” Hickmott said. “There is a real move away from metropolitan training centres and you only need to have a look at how successful it has been in different parts of the country to see how beneficial it has been.
“The facilities that are there at the moment, there’s a 1600-metre grass track, there’s a 1500-metre sand track inside that, and I’ve recently put 3,500 tonnes of sand on there. Both of those are fully irrigated.
“There’s a beautiful 28-horse barn and then there are two other 12-horse barns on site as well. There’s approximately 200 acres of irrigated paddocks and I’ve just ordered another 22 horse rail yards for day yards out of which I’ll train the horses. I’ve also got a brand new GG treadmill and walker being delivered next week.
“It’s all pretty much there. The ability to have your own grass track and barriers and everything within 100 metres of my stables, everyone dreams of that.”
The Lakewood operation will tie in with Hickmott’s stables in Murray Bridge, about 20 kilometres north-west.
Hickmott has been based at Murray Bridge since returning to South Australia from the Northern Territory in 2011 and he says that the town, 75 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, is poised to become a major centre for thoroughbred racing, especially since the opening of the new Gifford Hill racecourse just over a year ago.
“It (Gifford Hill) is a fantastic track, it is an unbelievable surface to train on,” Hickmott said. “I haven’t got a single negative thing to say about that. I think TRSA (Thoroughbred Racing SA) need to continue to put money into it like Racing Victoria have done with Ballarat and Cranbourne, and from there, I really think it’s going to become a hive of activity. It’s going to end up being the biggest asset to racing in South Australia, I think, and it needs to be considered that way and I’m sure that it will going forward.
“That said, no one is stabled on course at Gifford Hill at the moment, everyone is off course and it has been a real shambles. I’m lucky in that I own a really nice house and a brand new set of stables in Murray Bridge, I built them three years ago. I’ll continue to use them because they are close to the course, and I’m going to use the facility at Lakewood to complement that and to work in with what I do.
“Mainly the stables here in Murray Bridge will be for the younger horses. The long-term plan is that, when they get this development up and going, I will build stables on course at Murray Bridge and sell the house and stables.”
While Lakewood will offer the opportunity for rapid expansion should Hickmott choose to chase it, he is more comfortable with remaining a smaller operation in order to maintain his hands-on approach with his horses.
“I have 30 in work at the moment, with the farm I will probably increase that to 40 but I still want to keep it as a relatively boutique operation. I want to be very hands-on and visual with the horses,” he said.
“I’ve got 60 horses on agistment at Lakewood at the moment, of which I think 45 or 46 of them are mine to come into work. They range from recently turned three-year-olds and two-year-olds down to some younger yearlings who are just starting to arrive now.
“I like that side of it and we’re going to continue to grow the farm and really spend a lot of time and money to improve the facilities. I can see us getting more horses and maybe that will see us increase the number we have in work.”
While Hickmott is now in possession of one of the leading South Australian nurseries of the last half-century, he says it is highly unlikely that stallions will return to the farm that was once the home of the likes of Bellotto (Mr Prospector), Happy Giggle (Rory’s Jester) and Clangalang (Clang).
“I think it’s just something where you stick to what you know best,” Hickmott said. “I would love to develop a stallion one day and hopefully, from there, he’d end up at Newgate Farm or somewhere like that. I have a great relationship with Henry (Field) so that would be a dream.
“If I did something like that, I might have a stallion at Lakewood on my own, just to breed to a few mares. Maybe I’d look at doing that with some staying mares, just as a hobby or an interest, but certainly it’s not the plan to operate commercially.”
Horses and houses combine for Hickmott
Hickmott, who followed his father John and his brother Robert into the training ranks in the days after he turned 18 in August, 2006, mixed horses with houses early in his career, working as a real estate consultant and an auctioneer in Darwin while maintaining a string of thoroughbreds.
That business nous has paid dividends with the acquisition of what he calls his “dream property” – although it hasn’t been the most straightforward path.
“To be 100 per cent honest, the last four or five years I’ve been in a building phase,” Hickmott said. “That has been purely based around the fact that I wanted to buy property, although never in my wildest dreams did I think that my dream property would become available and it has.
“Every decent horse or young horse I’ve had, I’ve sold. I’ve been selling horses for other people, for other owners, getting them ready and getting commission. My whole model has been based around selling horses. The horses that I’ve been racing for the last few seasons have been the second hand horses, the horses that were left over or the horses that people had sent me to patch up and keep going.”
His rise to success – in the equine world, at least – began before his 19th birthday arrived a year later, winning the first of his three Darwin Cups (2000m) with General Market (Flying Spur). Two years later, classy stayer Activation (Zabeel) would give him a second win in the Top End’s biggest race, before he would return to Darwin to score with Canny Ballad (Dream Ballad) in 2016.
In recent months, Hickmott – who turned 32 earlier this week – has hit a purple patch of form. Of his last 50 runners, he has had 13 winners, while four of his last seven runners have been successful, including promising staying prospect Tibetan (Shocking) at Gawler on Wednesday.
What is notable is that more horses are heading to Hickmott as a destination, rather than as a stepping stone to Asia or to other stables in Sydney or Melbourne. The trainer believes that the Lakewood acquisition will only help those who entrust their horses to him.
“I think the demand for having some horses in South Australia at the moment is that the cost base is fantastic and people will still like to race horses locally,” he said.
“In saying that, I’ve got a lot of clients who are based in New Zealand and Hong Kong, because they see the benefits of still being able to race in Melbourne from an Adelaide base while not paying the Melbourne fees. The Hong Kong guys like it because it’s less costly for them and they are still getting the same job done.
“At the moment, too, I’m finding that there is really strong demand for the mum and dad owners, the five per cent shareholders. I think we’ve put four or five horses in the last couple of weeks; Shane Adair, who is a good mate of mine, he’s been helping with that as I just haven’t had the time with the farm. Now I’ve got someone who is helping with that side of things, we’re continuing to grow that very quickly.
“I had very limited stabling so that’s held me back, but it worked for what we were trying to achieve. The last couple of years, I’ve got some more stables, I’m renting some other stables at the moment as well and we’re increasing the numbers. We’re just starting to see those horses coming through as the three- and the four-year-olds now and I think we’ll only continue to grow and thrive from there.
With all the pieces coming together sweetly, Hickmott – who at 32 has already achieved more than many trainers achieve in a lifetime – now has his sights set on taking his business to the next level.
“In terms of having a million winners or huge stakes success, it probably hasn’t been a significant achievement, but it’s been big in terms of achieving what I’ve wanted so far,” he said.
“The last few years have been focused on developing a business and looking to purchase my own property and running my own race rather than renting stables my whole life. The big goal for me, now that we’ve purchased this property, is to really develop it and turn it back into the showpiece property that it was.
“Now that we’ve got that and I’ve got such good facilities, I would really like to start being able to have more runners and have more success from that point of view, while still being able to function and support my clients who have supported me throughout – for example, the guys from Hong Kong and New Zealand.
“It’s just going to allow me to expand in general and to continue to develop my business, while still being able to do it properly. All the money that we are spending on the farm at the moment is all back into the facilities, trying to provide the best possible operation for my horses and my clients.”