Thats my horse!
how a taxi ride 40 years on started a burgeoning bloodstock empire Plotting the path of Ken Lowe’s business and racing pursuits in a diagram would require a vast array of shapes and symbols, most pointing skyward Glen Latham He was ahead of the IT curve when it came to office computers in the 1980s. His keen interest in the patterns behind linebreeding could best be expressed with arrows. His introduction to his good friend and business partner, Steve Grant, a circle that starts and ends with a galloper called Bahroona Sahib. Then dotted throughout would be plenty of road signs all pointing to the township of Quirindi. Whether it is racing as the Carpe Diem syndicate with its involvement in the Newgate stallion partnerships, racing and breeding as Grant Lowe Bloodstock, or successfully selling as a 50% shareholder in yearlings offered under the banner of Grant’s Silverdale Farm, Ken’s success in both racing and breeding leaves the impression it all happened rapidly. He will readily tell you that he is a newcomer to the industry who is trying to learn at a brisk rate, but then his family had strong ties to the inception of the Quirindi Jockey Club in 1946, with his grandfather Pat Lowe acting as honorary secretary. Ken’s own involvement as we know it today had its genesis with a modest investment in a New Zealand horse import when playing football in the mid 1970’s. Ken’s parents grew up in Quirindi on the road north out of the Hunter Valley. They moved to Sydney during the war and rented at North Sydney. “Dad was a race lover and always had the radio on Saturday morning listening to Ken Howard, Clarence the Clocker and all those people. As a family, I can remember going to the Wallabadah Cup on New Year’s Day, but I didn’t go to the races regularly with dad as I played a bit of football and that was on Saturdays.”
By Gab Nutt
‘Playing a bit of football’ led Lowe to his first brush with racing as an owner. “My first involvement in racing was through the North Sydney Bears Rugby League Club when, in 1976, somebody was offering shares in a horse which had a value of $4,500, so I took two ninths of the ownership. He was registered as Bahroona Sahib (Bahroona), we nicknamed him Bruno, but it wasn’t until the horse had done well that we found out the purchase price from New Zealand was just $1,000!”
As mark-ups go on face value that looked a little on the high side, but it would turn out to be a shrewd investment. “Bruno ran third in the Canonbury Stakes on debut for Ken Tresize, before breaking his maiden the following August at Randwick in the Bank Holiday Handicap. Ken then took him to the Gosford Classic over 1600 metres against Saturday class three-yearolds where he sat last throughout before joining in late, winning, running away, as a 12/1 shot. In those days a $20,000 race was very good money.” Bahroona Sahib’s victory that day would play a significant role in the long term fortunes of Ken and his family. “I met my wife Maree when I was teaching at Enmore Boys High, and we decided to backpack through Asia. We landed in Kuala Lumpur then travelled through Malaysia, Thailand and then Burma (now Myanmar). Then when back in Kuala Lumpur, we were married at the kitchen table in the presbytery of St John’s Cathedral with the priest, his assistant and two witnesses who didn’t speak English! By the time, we got back to Sydney, all I had was a Valiant Charger I’d bought for 500 bucks at the auctions, a racehorse and definitely nothing in the bank. We were looking for $25K properties around Enmore, Dulwich Hill and Newtown, before they became trendy, which was all we could afford with a small deposit. But winning the Gosford Classic was a life changing moment for the prizemoney. $400 on at 12/1, allowed us to buy a semi-detached house at Clovelly near Gordons Bay in the eastern suburbs. We couldn’t see much water, but we got the sea breeze!” Bahroona Sahib’s knack of changing Ken and Maree’s fortunes didn’t stop there. “Bruno ran in the Canterbury Guineas, the Rosehill Guineas and acquitted himself well but it was extremely hard, taking on the likes of Belmura Lad and Luskin Star. He ran in the Champion Stakes for three-year-olds (now the Spring Champion run in September) on Doncaster Handicap day, a race in which I managed to get a trifecta that paid $3200. On the proceeds, Maree and I took leave without pay and backpacked around Europe through their summer. At one stage Bruno was favourite for the Epsom Handicap but he developed a heart issue that required a twelve month
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