18
August 2011 Northern
Farming Lifestyles
Equine Feature
A focus on horses and beef Weiti Station situated just north of Auckland between the East Coast Bays and Whangaparaoa peninsula is a long standing sport horse breeding stud
Jackie Hamiltion has managed Weiti Station for over 25 years with her husband Graham Coghlan, who also oversees the running of all the farms owned by Weiti ‘s owner Hugh Green. Jackie says Weiti’s priority had traditionally been sheep and beef, but sheep have been phased out in the last few years in favour of a less labour intensive farming operation. Now the station just raises cattle from weaning to killable weights. She says the horse side of things is obviously high maintenance, especially when foaling and the start of the show season coincide. The running of the farm profitably must always take centre stage, and the horses have to fit in around the work of looking after about 800 head of stock. A lot of the stock work is performed on horse back — especially in winter when the quad bikes are made obsolete by the depth of the mud. Weiti keeps a core band of around 12 broodmares. They range from a couple of sport bred thoroughbreds to mixed breeds including Gisborne station breds, part
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Alice on Eros going clear in the 6-year final at Horse of the Year in March, 2011
Blythe Tait and Santos on his arena surfaced with EQ2 Arena Sand. “I’m very happy with the performance of this surface”
Clydesdales and increasingly a mix of these traditional ‘kiwi’ breeds with European jumping lines. Many of the progeny are broken coloured — technically pintos, but Jackie prefers to call then by the British terminology — skewbalds — a chestnut, dun or bay horse with white patches or piebalds which have black and white patched coats.
priority, interesting colour is our speciality, and super star quality is an occasional bonus,’’ said Jackie speaking proudly of the progeny she has had a hand in producing over the years. Weiti Handy Andy is the current station stallion. He is an unusual roan and white skewbald, so produces lots of roan as well as skewbald foals. His sire is the
“At Weiti we aim to breed top quality horses — temperament is our number one
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