The Farm

The WS ideology is to maintain its position as a highly competitive commercial stud operation, while retaining a personal feel for staff members within the ‘family run’ business structure. To achieve this mix of professionalism and personal touch; WS makes a conscious effort in looking after and safeguarding its highly valued staff who are considered extended family.

At WS we believe the key to an efficiently run stud farm is a supreme level of internal communication and cooperation. We encourage our staff to feel part of the WS family by taking ownership of the role they perform while retaining a certain versatility to assist in any aspect of the stud’s day to day operation.

Great teamwork also comes from people who have a genuine love for thoroughbred horses and are appreciated for a job well done. At WS we strive for that synergy.

Horse and handler together form an understanding in the process of a young horse’s education where patience reaps the best results

High quality, well-maintained equipment and safe facilities are vital components in the prevention of injuries at WS

A place with a special aura, ethereal and sensuous. A land that lends itself to the noble breed of thoroughbreds, rich in nutrients and blessed with a geographical microclimate. A land judiciously discovered for all of these attributes: The Chosen Land.

When Texas Oil millionaire, Nelson Bunker Hunt came to New Zealand in 1967 for the first and only time, he was a man on a mission. His three day flying visit to New Zealand with wife Caroline was explicitly to purchase the best thoroughbred rearing land in New Zealand.

Bunker Hunt had engaged leading Australian bloodstock agent, Jim Shannon from Melbourne to do the homework and once completed, the astute agent pointed the millionaire in the direction of Tower Road, Matamata. The advice was carefully considered and not given lightly, but as the next 50 years unfolded it revealed Shannon’s chosen land was an inspired choice and one which would be profoundly influential for the New Zealand thoroughbred industry.

Bunker Hunt, in that flying visit, knocked on every farmer’s door on a stretch of Tower Road but found only one willing seller; the dairy farmer who owned the original home block comprising of 188 hectares, which consequently he bought and thus named Waikato Stud.

Waikato Stud’s humble beginnings had been prompted by Bunker Hunt’s prior success in buying New Zealand fillies and mares, then successfully returning them to the USA for both racing and breeding. He concluded that New Zealand’s ideal climate and soil types made it the perfect location for expansion to his thoroughbred breeding operation. To execute this plan he needed to locate, identify and purchase a unique place; The Chosen Land, Waikato Stud.

Bunker Hunt was a rancher, he understood the concept of rearing horses on the best land and he was one-tracked in his determination to secure the best patch of dirt on Shannon’s advice.

The Bunker Hunt era of Waikato Stud built the foundations and set the scene for future success. Some initial facilities on the home block included aspects of Kentucky’s famed Claiborne Farm to establish the Waikato Stud legacy. The Stud’s modest rate of early success would increase exponentially in the second half of its 50-year history, as gradual phases of property expansion were undertaken in unison with a stallion line up which increased both numerically and in quality.

Doutelle’s highly performed son, Prétendre, became the Stud’s first stallion and Australasia’s first ever shuttle stallion when Bunker Hunt brought him out in 1970. He was a high-class performer who came within a neck of winning the 1966 English Derby and in shuttling Prétendre, Bunker Hunt, who owned in the vicinity of 1000 horses, proved he was a man ahead of his time.

Prétendre had commenced his stud career in Kentucky and from his first crop in 1968, sired the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Canonero. In 1970 he also stood the Northern Hemisphere season in England. At Waikato Stud he had just two crops of foals in 1971 and 1972, but then tragically died at only nine years of age when in quarantine at Alton Lodge, returning for his third season.

Waikato Stud’s early stallion roster following Prétendre included; Decies, My Friend Paul, Brigand, Magnesia, Barcas, Ace Of Aces and Zephyr Bay. Then came Pompeii Court and Dahar in the public company era before the arrival of the Chittick family in 1994 who, with them, brought the highly successful Centaine. Later sires came in the form of Danasinga, O’Reilly, Pins, No Excuse Needed and Fast ‘n’ Famous prior to today’s roster.

The Decies presence at Waikato Stud was significant, siring Rosehill Guineas winner, Lefroy in his first crop and W.S. Cox Plate winner, Dulcify in his second. Pompeii Court came later and sired the Waikato Studbred, Courtza; the first New Zealand bred Golden Slipper winner who later came back into Waikato Stud’s ownership and presented her first foal in 1993 which was O’Reilly.

When Bunker Hunt’s empire faltered in the 1980s; Waikato Stud was taken over by Elders Finance, publicly listed and went through a transformational phase in the late eighties and early nineties.

The land quality (although restricted by size at the start of its thoroughbred stud use) produced a succession of high-class performers; a precursor to the Stud’s potential and one recognized by Garry Chittick when the stud came up for sale in 1993.

Waikato Stud climbed to a new level with judicious stallion selection and broodmare retention. Today, a significant proportion of the Stud’s 200 odd broodmares trace back to the best families bred, raced and retained in earlier days at Thornton Park Stud at Longburn in Manawatu.

When adjacent farms eventually came up for sale, Garry and Mark seized the opportunity to expand and the result is the Waikato Stud you see today. A stud which has been transformed into one of the best-appointed facilities in the world, all on thoroughbred-rearing land of exceptional quality. The original 188 hectares after land parcels were added at various intervals increased gradually to 688 hectares, comprising of eight separate land titles.

As the Stud expanded in land area, so too did horse numbers in unison with the quality of yearlings and a new level of stallion success from careful selection policies. These factors undoubtedly propelled Waikato Stud to the number one producer of Group One winners in New Zealand with a strike rate that is highly competitive by international standards.

Centaine was 14 years old and the country’s leading stallion when he arrived with the Chittick family from Thornton Park Stud in 1994. He was Champion New Zealand Sire in 1992/93, Champion Two-YearOld Sire in 1988/89 and again in 1999/00. He won the Dewar Award in 1993 and became highly influential with ongoing success as a leading sire of broodmares.

Waikato Stud for the next 25 years would never be without the luxury of a top stallion in the roster as home-bred O’Reilly, after a brilliant race career cut short by injury, joined Centaine for stud duties in the spring of 1997 and made an immediate impact.

In the next 18 consecutive breeding seasons, O’Reilly would sire the winners of $134 million in stake earnings amid winning both the Grosvenor and Centaine Awards on three occasions each and the Dewar Award twice. With almost 1,000 individual winners, his 14 Group One winners included performers of the calibre of Silent Achiever, Alamosa and Sacred Falls.

Three years hence, in the first year of the new millennium, Pins added further stallion power to the roster in commencing his stud career, which proved a remarkable success through a total of 18 seasons. He quickly established himself as one of the great stallions and went on to twice win the Centaine Award for combined progeny earnings worldwide with winners in five countries. He was Champion Sire of Hong Kong in 2011/12 and had total progeny earnings over $95.5 million.

In 2005 Savabeel was secured for stud. He has added the biggest and most successful chapter in Waikato Stud history; Champion sire since season 2014-2015 and for the same sequence taking the Dewar Award. In addition, he has been a Centaine Award winner on numerous occasions and the most successful sire at yearling sale time in New Zealand for a decade.

In the first decade of the new millennium, Waikato Stud was recognized as the leading breeder of Group One winners. In 2008/09 alone, the Stud produced six individual Group One winners of nine Group One events throughout Australasia. Two years earlier, in 2006, it created history as the first New Zealand stud to breed a Group One winner in Europe.

Starcraft triumphed in two Group One events in Europe which earned him the title of World Champion Older Turf Miler. His Waikato Stud owned dam, Flying Floozie subsequently won three consecutive, ‘New Zealand Broodmare of the Year’ titles.

Consistently Waikato Stud has averaged 12 stakes winners per year, and from year one has bred 40-odd individual Group One winners. Since 2014, the stud has achieved the mantle of leading vendor at the Karaka Yearling Sales on aggregate on every occasion.

Other milestones for the Waikato Stud include; the record of eight stallions that have been awarded Champion Sire status from the 21 Group One producing stallions that have resided at Waikato Stud in the first 50 years.

Waikato Stud and Garry Chittick has been six times New Zealand Breeder of the Year, Garry has twice been honoured with a Racing Excellence and Outstanding Contribution Award and ten years after the second of these awards in 2006 Garry was inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.

Waikato Stud has enjoyed a magnificent first 50 years and as the Stud rolls into the second 50 years, the outlook is as exciting as any time in the Stud’s history. An upward spiralling quality of broodmares, coupled with promising young stallions in the form of Ocean Park, Tivaci, Ardrossan and Super Seth augurs well for the next generation of Chitticks.