Wellfield changes its modus operandi

Images courtesy of Wellfield Lodge

The Palmerston North farm has been home in the past to a number of stallions, but its business model, for the foreseeable future, is now more focussed on an operation based on a quality broodmare band.

Wellfield is now currently home to only the multiple Group 1 winner and sire Alamosa (NZ) having launched the career of Vespa (NZ), who has been relocated this year to the Waikato property of majority owner Kevin Hickman’s Valachi Downs.

“The downturn in breeding has affected everyone. We lost Road To Rock and Alamosa in the twilight of his career. We are concentrating more on down-scaling the volume of mares we’ve got, but upscaling the quality, and our racing team.

“We’ve had a nice bunch of mares coming off the track in the last three seasons. It’s a better mix and it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand stallions in the lower North Island and the South Island.

“The general broodmare pool in based up in the north so unless you get a stallion that everyone wants to use like Savabeel it’s very tough. That’s not to say we won’t do it in the future, but at the moment location is a major factor.

“We may stand stallions in the future, but there is a general consolidation within the New Zealand stallion scene.

“We had 80 mares and we’re down to about 25 now. A lot have been on-sold or retired and we probably had too many mares of lesser quality.”

Group 1 winner Vespa retired to Wellfield in 2016 and has subsequently made an encouraging start to his stud career.

From a handful of runners to date, he has produced the Group-performed 2-year-olds Kelly Renee (NZ) and Piaggio (NZ).

The former was runner-up in the G2 Matamata Breeders’ S. and third in the G1 Diamond S. while Piaggio, whose co-trainer Johnno Benner also prepared Vespa, was second in the G3 Taranaki Classic.

Relocation always the plan

Vespa’s relocation to Valachi Downs in 2020 was part of a plan put in place from the outset.

“Initially, when we took the horse on it was in partnership with Kevin and he was very keen to support the horse. He was keen to have a crack and at that stage he wasn’t standing stallions,” Gleeson said.

“Kevin has been one of the horse’s biggest supporters every breeding season and the mares Kevin sent down were based on his pedigree and physical researching.

“He doesn’t categorise commercial appeal when he’s selecting his matings, it’s been solely on what suits Vespa. As a consequence, Kevin has sent mares by Galileo and a number of high-quality Zabeel mares.

“He’s had some outstanding mares and from the outset when we were talking to Kevin about standing the horse it was my decree that if we can get him to a certain level and if it made sense for him to grow as a stallion to go somewhere else, then we would do what’s best for the horse.

“We had a discussion at Karaka earlier this year and further discussions since. We all thought it was the right time to open him up to a new broodmare pool.

“It made sense to give him the opportunity to go the next level and we support that. It was instigated by us and wasn’t forced upon us.”

Gleeson said Wellfield would continue to send quality mares to Vespa.

“We’ve got a few by Vespa in work and so has Valachi and we’ve had good reports from trainers on the quality of the stock he’s leaving and we're optimistic he can keep stepping up.

“It’s a difficult year obviously because COVID-19 with three months of the racing season lost so we’re not getting a clear picture, but you can only deal with what you’ve got in play.

“He’s currently sitting second equal in terms of winners for a first-season sire we’ve got a couple of 2-year-olds that could possibly race in July. They are showing promise and we feel they can add to his record before the end of the season.”