Industry Mentors: Andrew Seabrook

Cover image courtesy of New Zealand Bloodstock

Career choices never confused Andrew Seabrook as he had a blinkered focus from a tender age on a particular professional path and it’s one that subsequently fulfilled a long-held ambition.

Seabrook never aspired to do anything other than be involved in the breeding and racing industries and a combination of natural aptitude, an inherited passion for the game and hard work have enabled him to succeed in his role as New Zealand Bloodstock’s Managing Director.

He has been with the company all his working life and wouldn’t have ever wanted it to be any other way once the opportunity to join the fold presented itself after completing his higher education.

“It was a dream of mine ever I since was a kid to run New Zealand Bloodstock, or Wrightson Bloodstock as it was then or to run the Auckland Racing Club,” Seabrook said.

“They were my dreams as a 10-year-old and I’ve been lucky enough to achieve one of them.”

Born into a life of racing

He attributes much of his success to great mentors such as NZB Principal Sir Peter Vela, Chairman Joe Walls and International Bloodstock Manager John Cameron and outside of the company respected bloodstock agent John Foote.

Seabrook was born into a life of racing and one that he embraced to the full from a young age.

“I am Cambridge-born and bred and my grandfather Bob raced a lot of horses and was Chairman of the Waikato Racing Club,” he said.

“He raced a horse called Llanisfair and Tommy Smith trained him in Sydney after he left New Zealand. He won the lead-up to the G1 Sydney Cup by 8l with George Moore in the saddle.

“He was favourite for the Sydney Cup a week later and he ranged up on the turn and stopped and finished last and they reckon he was got at. My grandfather also owned a horse called Meresun, who was a great jumper of the 1950s.

“My father Richard was a very keen horseman and raced a lot of horses, including Scarlet Runner who won a Group 2. He was on the JCA for a long time and I was always destined to do something in racing.”

Seabrook excelled at his studies with a possible diversion from racing to accountancy which was quickly snubbed out.

“I went to school in Cambridge and university in Waikato and got a Bachelor of Management. I actually got a job at Ernst and Young to be a trainee accountant and a week before I was due to start I got a call Wrightson Bloodstock, it was actually Steve Davis," he said.

“I was only 21 at the time and they were looking for someone young to start. That was in 1992 and I’ve been here ever since.

“I was in the pedigree department for a year and we did all of that in-house and my first boss was John Wright the cricketer, he worked for us then.

“That lasted for about six months after he had just retired as the skipper of New Zealand. The team was on tour in Pakistan and a bomb went off and a few of them got scared and came home.

“Wrighty said he would go up there and take care of the rest of them so he left us. Then I did about three years as a bloodstock rep out on the road and firstly under John Cameron and then Steve Davis when he came back from Melbourne.

“Sir Peter and Phillip Vela bought Wrightson Bloodstock at the end of 1996 and renamed it New Zealand Bloodstock.

“I came up to Karaka to further my career. I started off at the bottom and worked my way up.”

Formative years

Walls was a significant influence on Seabrook’s formative years with the company.

“Joe was a bit of a legend and a wonderful auctioneer. He was fantastic with people, a really good judge of a horse in his own right and a good businessman,” Seabrook said.

“He was a really clear thinker and still is a great thinker outside of the square and never scared to try anything new. If you look back over our history, quite a few innovations that started in the auction game was when Joe was in charge or involved.

“I was under John Cameron and Steve Davis and both of them have great qualities. John’s integrity, honesty and loyalty were massive and he’s still here 50 years on and I learned a lot from both of them.”

However, it wasn’t always a straightforward march up the company ladder.

“Steve tried to make me an auctioneer, but I failed in that regard and wasn’t good enough. Steve pulled me aside and said you’d better concentrate on something else so I did," Seabrook said.

“Then Sir Peter and Phillip bought the business and I’ve been with Peter for 23 years now. Obviously, if I wasn’t happy and didn’t like working for him I wouldn’t be here.

“He gave me the reins to run the business with my management team with freedom, but at the same time acting as a great sounding board.

“He is the most intelligent person I’ve ever met and the impact he has had on the industry here in New Zealand shouldn’t be under-estimated.

“Joe, John, Steve and Sir Peter have been hugely supportive with their advice and time.”

Outside influence

And so has another respected figure outside of the NZB line-up.

“John Foote has been a great influence on my development over the last 28 years. I really started with him when I was in England working at Tatts when the company sent me there for three months,” Seabrook said.

“He knows his pedigrees and is a great judge and knows the global scene so well. I learned a lot from him about how to conduct business with integrity and to build relationships.”

Seabrook is also conscious of what he considers his obligation to nurture young talent.

“I would like the think that I have done the same with the young ones that have come through the system here at NZB. It is almost the first port of call for these kids that leave school or university and want to get a foot in the industry,” he said.

“We’ve had the likes of Jamie Richards, Guy Mulcaster and Bevan Smith, to name a few, come through.

“We’ve got a great mixture of experience and youth and some great people coming through and most of them have a real passion in the industry. We’ve got an outstanding team.”

Challenges met

And it has been a strong team effort and new technology that has combined for NZB to successfully navigate unchartered waters in a troubling 2020.

“We saw four years ago that online sales were going to become a thing of the future and we were lucky enough to buy gavelhouse.com, which was just a listing site at the time,” Seabrook said.

“We turned that into an online platform, which has been a great story because there has been a need and a time for it and none more so than now for us to diversify.

“If we had stuck to our knitting and sold horses through the ring we were going to go nowhere so we looked outside the square. COVID-19 has really emphasised the need for new technology and online platforms.”

Online emphasis

Seabrook also sees the bloodstock world becoming fully dependant on the online business in the future.

“I can see in my lifetime that we won’t have physical sales. I think that’s almost a given that one day technology will become so good and people’s desire to travel less and less that I’m sure we won’t be having physical sales, as sad as that may sound,” he said.

“I am a traditionalist and love nothing better than the physical sale here at Karaka, but I think it will be a reality one day.”

NZB has also diversified into another code under Seabrook’s stewardship.

“Three years ago we saw an opportunity in the standardbred game so in we came and that has been a real learning curve and one that everybody here has embraced,” he said.

Another major project well underway at Karaka is the hotel complex rising within the grounds.

“We’re about 10 months away from finishing the Double Tree by Hilton Karaka Hotel that is going along nicely. While some people may think we’re mad building a hotel in these times, we are very happy, confident and buoyant that it will be a long-term success,” Seabrook said.

The 120-room hotel will provide the first luxury accommodation in the South Auckland Papakura – Franklin region with a range of innovative high tech specifications designed to ensure ease and comfort for clients.

Auction focus

The NZB attention is now focussed on upcoming sales, next month’s Ready to Run Sale and the National Yearling Sale series early next year.

“The breeze-ups were very successful and we’re lucky here in New Zealand that we can run two days of breeze-ups on one track, albeit we had a bit of rain on the Tuesday,” Seabrook said.

“I think it’s nice for buyers to see the consistency of the breeze-ups at Te Rapa and they ran really well. We have the new online platform, of course we’ve got gavelhouse.com, but we’ve never actually had online bidding through an NZB Sale at Karaka.

“That’s mainly been due to the slow Internet, but we’ve got fibre so that will be rolled out and it will be really interesting. It will be good for the bloodstock agents to have a good few months buying for overseas people.

“Do I think the Sale will go up, no I don’t, but we’re hopeful that it will hold up well.

“Then there are the yearling sales and we’re going to know a whole lot more after the breeze-up sale as to how we’ll go in January.

“We did a survey with the Australian buyers two or three months ago and the feedback was surprisingly positive about their desire to buy remotely, hence our decision to go ahead with our normal sale date in January.”

Seabrook can also see signs of change with New Zealand breeders putting more of an accent on stallions capable of fulfilling the demand for distance horses.

“I think there is a bit more of a desire and I know we went away from that for a while and probably imported too much speed. I think we are getting back on track with the proven ones like Shocking, Redwood and Reliable Man,” he said.

“There are ones coming through to fill a void like Contributer, Preferment, Mongolian Khan, Vanbrugh, Wrote, Ace High and Vadamos. I think there is more of an effort to breed staying horses.”