‘My little chapter is something that I’d never want to take back’
HAYES DYNASTY OVER AT CORNERSTONE
In the middle of last year, Sam Hayes quietly sold out of Cornerstone Stud, ending the family’s almost six-decade association with the historic Barossa Valley farm that was first acquired by his famous Hall Of Fame grandfather Colin Hayes in 1965.
His share of Cornerstone Stud was acquired by his business partner of seven years John Frankhuisen while Hayes, the son of the late Peter Hayes, also parted with the rich 182-hectare South Australian landholding.
Alongside Frankhuisen, expatriate Englishman Sam Pritchard-Gordon, who joined Cornerstone Stud in early 2019 after a stint training in Victoria, bought a share in the farm itself to complete Hayes’ exit.
Pritchard-Gordon continues to manage Cornerstone Stud for Frankhuisen, who now wholly owns the business after he bought out Hayes’ interest around the start of the new financial year.
Under the Lindsay Park Stud banner, Cornerstone Stud was home to influential Australian stallions Without Fear (Baldric), Godswalk (Dancer’s Image), Scenic (Sadler’s Wells) and Bluebird (Storm Bird), among others, from the 1970s through to 1990s, the halcyon days of the South Australian racing and breeding industry.
Sam Hayes took over management of Lindsay Park Stud in 2005, which coincided with his uncle, champion trainer David Hayes, coming back from Hong Kong, returning to the helm of the Lindsay Park racing empire, which in turn saw him set up a state-of-the-art training base near Euroa in Victoria.
In 2011, Sam Hayes with his then business partner Darren Thomas rebranded Lindsay Park Stud as Cornerstone, the name it has retained ever since, before the Seymour Bloodstock principal sold his share in 2016 to Frankhuisen, a South Australian businessman who made his fortune through the printing of wine labels.
Hayes’ decision to sell Cornerstone wasn’t a sudden one or one that he’d taken lightly. More than a year prior, in early 2022, Hayes had set up Toop+Toop Rural, a rural-focused real estate agency, a business that has since grown beyond expectations.
The changing dynamic of the South Australian breeding industry, and a declining broodmare population in the state, also influenced Hayes’ career choice and led to a conversation with Frankhuisen about his appetite to reinvest in the business.
“It all started two, two-and-a-half years ago when it became apparent that Sam Pritchard-Gordon was well capable of running the business and with the two of us there it was probably a little bit top heavy,” Hayes told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“I think what was happening in the background was that we were already making up our minds that the days of a stallion farm here were nearing the end and that was part of the business that I was quite passionate about.
“But commercially and realistically being more of a high-end broodmare farm and spelling business, which was staffed accordingly, was probably the right model.
“That model needs fewer people, but it would also need investment because if you are going to swing into owning better mares, then the right mares aren’t cheap, and I was probably nearly out of [financial] bullets at that stage.
“In fairness to [Frankhuisen] and in fairness to the business, if there was going to be another significant contribution to the business, it was unfair for me to just tag along unless I was contributing something.”
Hayes, and by extension Pritchard-Gordon and Frankhuisen, weren’t hiding the fact there had been a change of ownership, but they weren’t making a song and dance about it.
The trio spoke publicly at the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale for the first time about the restructure and the future of Cornerstone Stud.
Frankhuisen and Pritchard-Gordon debated rebranding the stud but in the end elected to retain the Star CS brand in acknowledgement of CS Hayes’ legacy as well as how best to future-proof the business.
The pandemic also expedited Cornerstone’s change in direction, moving away from standing stallions and focussing more on increasing the quality of its broodmare band.
“John was in agreement that rather than putting our neck on the line with another stallion, let’s find a way of making Cornerstone survive and get through the next ten years,” Pritchard-Gordon said.
“That allowed Sam [Hayes] to take a step back and earn a proper living. About two years ago, Sam got his real estate licence and I took over the management of Cornerstone and we’ve just been quietly refining the business since.
“Sadly, it is shrinking with a smaller staff structure and noticeably less overheads, but the vision is to try and grow a broodmare band that can reflect what South Australia can do.”
Frankhuisen admitted the pressure of running a commercial stud had weighed heavily on Hayes, something he also acknowledged, but the change of structure and ownership was already starting to pay off for all parties.
“During that time [since 2017] I wasn’t actively involved on a day-to-day basis, so Sam Hayes was copping all the stress, really, and I think that’s probably impacted on Sam over all those years in being the frontman trying to keep [Cornerstone] going and making it better,” Frankhuisen said.
“I think that really took its toll on Sam. He had a great opportunity for him and I don’t blame him. We sat down and had a bit of a chat about it, ‘is it the end of the road, what do we do?’ and I was just confident with Sam Pritchard-Gordon being there and wanting to be there that we could make a go of it.
“It was an easy decision for me to say, ‘I’ll take over Sam’s half of the farm and we’ll give it a crack’.”
Hayes, who remains on Cornerstone’s advisory board, understands his family name brings with it a racing and breeding legacy but said he never felt he had to work in the thoroughbred industry.
“Dad, while he was alive, was always encouraging us to go out and experience the world and other industries, so no, I’ve never felt a sense of obligation,” said Hayes, who worked in the wine industry prior to taking on the stud.
“Towards the end, if I felt any obligation it was to the [South Australian] industry at large more than to my family.
“I was hanging onto that notion that it would be important for every state to have a commercial stallion farm, but in the end that was to the detriment of the business.
“You can be persistent, but there’s a fine line between persistence and stubbornness sometimes and I think I was very close to being on that line.”
In 2021, in the early stages of the reshaping of Cornerstone Stud, a group of clients invested in four European mares to send to champion European stallion Frankel (Galileo) to southern hemisphere time.
Since the change of direction, Cornerstone has sold one of those mares in Australia for $650,000, while a yearling colt made $725,000 at the Magic Millions in January and a weanling made $925,000 at the National Weanling Sale last year.
Cornerstone will offer a Frankel filly out of Lustrale (Sea The Stars) at the upcoming Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale to round out what has proven to be a “fruitful idea”.
“John’s been quite active to buy some well-pedigreed fillies off the track and in foal,” Pritchard-Gordon said.
“We’re not doing it in the style that’s going to be noticed by the racing press, but John’s been very good in buying into some nice mares and we’re looking to mate them with a view of having smaller drafts of more quality and hopefully ending up with that Star CS brand being quite prevalent on the racetrack.”
It’s only in recent months that Hayes, unburdened from the daily stresses of running a horse stud, that he’s back enjoying racing as more of a casual observer.
“At the end of the day I am immensely proud of the family legacy carried on through people like Tom [Dabernig], David and my cousins, Will, JD and Ben, so there is no fear that the Hayes name is going to be lost to racing,” Sam Hayes said.
“My little chapter here in SA of helping to run Cornerstone Stud is something that I’d never want to take back. I think it’s been a really great chapter in my life and I am still really proud of the fact that our family made a nice contribution to the industry.”
While the South Australian industry has changed, and it’s unlikely to turn back, Pritchard-Gordon says history still plays a part for the state’s thoroughbred breeders.
“Our local breeders, although small in numbers, are pretty good at what we do in terms of what we produce,” he said.
“The climate is second to none and I am hopeful over the course of the next three to four years you’ll see that on the racetrack.”