Woodside Park Refines its Direction in Victoria
Earlier this month it was announced that James Price would be leaving his role as CEO of Woodside Park Stud at the end of the financial year as part of a major restructure at the leading Victorian farm that will see them them vacate their traditional base at Tylden which is home to stallions Tosen Stardom (Deep Impact), Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock), Rich Enuff (Written Tycoon) and Cable Bay (Invincible Spirit).
Jo Mckinnon spoke with Woodside Park’s owner Mark Rowsthorn about his vision for the the future, and posed the burning question, will champion stallion Written Tycoon (Iglesia), who once stood at Woodside Park, remain at Arrowfield Stud in the Hunter Valley next season or make a return to Victoria.
In the wake of the recent announcement can you explain a bit more about your plans for Woodside Park moving forward?
Essentially, when I took over from my father five years ago we had four properties and it was always an immediate term objective to get down to one. Critical to that was the purchase of Morningside at Nagambie from Bill Burns which is now one one and a half years ago.
It’s a wonderful property and historically has grown some great yearlings. It makes sense given it’s the only freehold property we have that we would end up there.
In relation to the racing facility, Eddie Hirsch has done some really impressive improvements to the track and infrastructure and the breeding operation down the road at Central Road we sold the freehold to Fulton Hogan, our neighbour with the quarry, and we lease it back. Part of that arrangement was that we could give notice and depart with six months notice.
Our plan is to relocate the activities there such as the stallions standing at the barn, while mares and foals when they are weaned off will go up to Morningside to be grown out for weanling and primarily yearling sales.
The timing of that move is still up in the air and it depends on planning and so forth in terms of getting the facilities up and running by August this year. We have flexibility that we stay at Tylden for another stallion season and transfer over if there is too much stress involved in getting ready on time. I’d rather get things right.
Obviously, this is a period of serious refinement?
I think that’s a good way of describing it. It’s about getting more focussed and pitching ourselves at the pointy end. That’s where we need to be. You look at the sales results at that elite end and you need to breed to the highly commercial stallions, the successful stallions that have a propensity to breed stakes winners and black-type horses.
You should support first season sires, but if you don’t get that right and you don’t have the right mare with the right page and the right type you are really punished. It’s just a waste of time in terms of profitability on a per unit basis. You have to get every bit of it right. The right pedigrees, the right types and be mindful of what syndicators are looking for.
So how will things now work on the management side of things at Woodside Park?
Will, my eldest son, will take over at Morningside. He’s been ready for a while and with James bringing some skills on the sales side and presentation and communication and marketing, he’s learned a lot about the other side of the trade and the things that breeders think about and the challenges they have.
It’s been terrific for James and us. Going forward Will, and my other son Tom, will be involved. Will will run more of the cattle and cropping on the farm. We have 1,000 acres at Morningside and equine takes a quarter of the preparation.
There are other interests that we are growing there. We have Ben Gunn who is a fantastic stallion guy and Matt Upton will continue to rear our young horses.
They are great young people. James taught them some stuff and I will now get more involved in this transition period. They are young, enthusiastic and skilled.
It’s a smaller team than what we had. The staff piece is challenging for the industry. With younger people more mobile they are harder to keep. You have to keep training them and keep them interested and that includes the stable hands and even maintenance people and the handlers. It’s really hard to keep those roles in place in smaller businesses. I think that is one of the bigger challenges and frustrations in the breeding industry is that it’s hard to find and retain good people.
In summary, it’s a more family focused and boutique operation. We have had a history of partners in mares and now we are less inclined to do that and do our own things.
We want to keep it simple and push for the highest quality we can and we have got the people to do that and continue to improve our mare band and continue to stand stallions on the basis they continue to be profitable.
It’s not a complete pivot but a refinement of what we want to do; to make it more sustainable and fun and do a bit more racing like Rick (Jamieson) at Gilgai and Robert Crabtree down the road. They tend to have 50 or so mares, race a few and buy fillies.
I have developed friendships with those guys in the area and Gerry Ryan too.
It’s not going to be as big and complicated with the burden of partnerships in horses. We are keeping it simple.
How committed are you to standing stallions in the future?
The plan is to transfer all the stallions across to Morningside and we will stay in that business while it is profitable and sustainable.
With stallions, it’s intensely competitive. We have been incredibly lucky with Written Tycoon, who is going from strength to strength. And we have Zoustar in an arrangement with Widden Stud which is now finalised.
Rich Enuff is showing some early success which we are really pleased about, Cable Bay is starting to get two-year-olds on the track while Tosen Stardom is still to do that but there’s still time for those guys.
We have supported them heavily with our own mares and we will continue to do that.
The decision to move Written Tycoon to Arrowfield Stud in the Hunter Valley certainly polarised the Victorian breeding industry last year. He’s having an enormous season on the racetrack so far and has been supported with some high-quality mares since the big move. Will he remain in the Hunter Valley or return to Victoria?
I only contemplated the move because John Messara reached out and showed some interest with the pensioning of Not A Single Doubt and he was keen to get an outcross into his ranks.
Written Tycoon, the year before had been quite quiet on the track and I just felt from ours and the shareholders’ perspective that we would have been better off giving the stallion a new lease on life. John committed 35 of his elite mares to him so it was just a shot in the arm the horse needed for a year.
The decision on where he will stand isn’t finalised yet and there will be an announcement obviously because it’s pretty newsworthy. There’s been lots of rumours, is he going or staying.
John would like to get the horse. He had a fantastic breeding year and John said he thinks it’s a world record for an 18-year-old stallion that he got 171 mares in foal. Hopefully they all stick but historically that’s an extraordinary result. He’s a terrific old campaigner and he’s still got a twinkle in his eye.
At the end of the day, he will end up standing where it makes the most sense for all the shareholders. Sheriff Iskander owns 40 per cent, I have 20 per cent and rest is made up by other shareholders.
It’s a critical decision because, off the back of Ole Kirk and others, his fee will obviously go up and we will have to limit the number of mares he takes on.
You would think he’s in the top two or three stallions in the country. It’s tough in Victoria because most of his customer base, historically since his fee rose to $50,000 plus, has come from the Hunter Valley.
There’s the elite end of the Victorian market that have supported him but most of the support base comes from NSW.
What are your views about the state of play with racing in Victoria?
It’s been amazing. I think it’s critical for the breeding industry that racing is successful and continues to be.
That push and shove with Victoria and NSW has improved the offering and that’s terrific. Now we are more inclined to stay in horses or, if we breed a fantastic filly, we will stay in it and race it.
We haven’t done that so much in the past and it’s been more a case of clearing the decks but now we want to align ourselves with our buyers more than we have in the past, which is something we need to do, especially with the leading trainers return support and commitment to them and hopefully it’s something we can do and have success with and enjoy.
Has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted on business at Woodside Park in any way?
In the stallion business we rely on seasonal people. There are a lot of Kiwi, French and English people who have a dual hemisphere career and they are missed and that’s made it hard for getting those roles in, which are critical.
We have had to rely on our own people being trained up and doing different things. It’s been difficult for everyone, not so much on the farm but I’m talking in general.
I feel like there’s such a gloom over Melbourne and it’s become the new normal. I love getting up to the farm and being relieved of all that restriction.
I think the racing industry has done a great job in maintaining the races and it’s kept a lot of the avid supporters sane through the whole thing. It’s been therapeutic watching the racing, it’s a shame there are no crowds there but I’m sure that will emerge shortly.