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Changes have continued at Patinack Farm’s operations with the news that chief executive Peter Beer was retrenched last Friday.
With the rapid downsizing of Nathan Tinkler’s extensive racing and breeding operation continuing the industry respected Beer, who had been with Patinack Farm since 2009, has been a high profile casualty.
Last week there was news of the racing stables in Melbourne being closed and racing authorities in Victoria, NSW and Queensland having to use prizemoney to pay racing clubs for sponsorship commitments and stable rental.
It was also announced that there was to be shift from racing to breeding for a downsized Patinack Farm.
Tinkler Group CEO Troy Palmer said the closure of the Flemington stable would be the first step in the process.
“The racing operation is losing money and unfortunately part of the rationalisation will include the closure of our Flemington stables in Melbourne and a reduction of horses in work,” Palmer said.
“There are simply too many horses in work and the reduction in numbers will greatly assist in coordinating better placement of horses and a much greater focus on quality.
“This will enable us to concentrate on full time racing stables in Brisbane and Sydney and support our breeding operations in the Hunter Valley and the Gold Coast."
Tinkler's shift of focus to the breeding sector over racing was reportedly given as the reason for Beer leaving.
“We are downsizing to be more of a breeding operation rather than a racing operation and this decision is obviously part of that restructuring,” Patinack Farm spokesman Tim Allerton told News Limited.
“Peter Beer has done a terrific job in the last three years for the company and we wish him all the best in the future.
“He is more of a racing person than a breeding person,” he said.
Reductions in the number of horses owned by Patinack Farm, which were reported to be 1300, commenced at the Magic Millions sales on the Gold Coast in the last week of October with191 mares in an unreserved sale for a sale gross of $2,779,750. The average price was a $14,554.
Group 1 producing mare Midnight Ballet was the star of the sale attracting an opening bid of $100,000 before selling for $240,000.
A further 40 mares will sell, unreserved, at the Inglis Sydney Summer Thoroughbred Sale, along with some 20 racehorses from the racing stables.
Stud Manager, Ben Lawrence said in a sale media release, “Patinack Farm currently has close to 400 mares and our plan for some time has been to reduce that number to 300. After our recent reduction of 200 mares we are pleased to offer another group of mares to breeders with the aim of getting to our target number.”
Cash flow problems with Tinkler’s business interests have resulted in the stable having run out of feed and not being able to engage farriers.
“The last few months has been pretty tough for the guys at Patinack Farm,” said trainer John Thompson in an interview on Sky Sports Radio after their filly Nechita had won the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes at Flemington on November 3rd.
“I have gone weeks without farriers, bedding, run out of feed a number of times. It’s a cashflow problem. Nathan is obviously very wealthy but it’s all paper sort of value,” he said.
“He has always suffered from owning a business that doesn’t have cashflow that pays the bills. In the last 12 months we have just basically been relying on prizemoney,” he added.
Stables at Hawkesbury have also been closed.
Recent racing success for Patinack Farm has come from the colt All Too Hard, trained by the Hawkes’ stable, winning the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas over 1600m and coming second in the Group 1 WFA Cox Plate over 2040m.
Total stakes earnings from those two races were $1,040,000 before winning trainer and jockey percentages of 15%.
Nechita earned $300,000 for the Coolmore Stud win to take her total stake earnings to $447,800.
The stable had further success over the weekend with Honourable Aussie winning at Canterbury on Friday night and Levi's Choice at Rosehill on Saturday. The two wins earned $68,630 in prizemoney.
