South American leads the stallion team at Newgate

Cover image courtesy of Newgate Farm

It’s taken just a decade for Newgate Farm to climb to the top of Australian bloodstock, a success story that has blossomed from 250 acres and a handful of mares to the punchy, commercially brilliant stallion farm that it is today.

Newgate launched its stallion division in 2012 with the purchase of Foxwedge, and from there the trajectory was only upward. The farm stands some of the best names off the track, like Deep Field and Flying Artie, and some of them, like G1 Golden Slipper winner Capitalist, have been explosive.

This season, Newgate has 11 Australian stallions on its roster, headed by the reigning Champion First Season Sire Extreme Choice, and it’s an enviable lineup.

Overseeing it all is the farm’s new stallion manager, Uruguayan ex-pat Sebastian Angelillo.

Hemisphere hopping

At 34 years old, South American Angelillo is widely travelled and highly trained.

Behind him, he has years of thoroughbred experience with some of the top farms in Uruguay and Chile, but also Kentucky, Ireland and here in Australia. He earned top honours in the Kentucky Equine Management Internship (KEMI) program, and he spent time at Taylor Made Farm, the Irish National Stud and a year at Widden Stud.

He was directly involved in the negotiations that saw two-leg Triple Crown hero California Chrome (USA) shuttle to Chile for three years and, along with Marette Farrell and David Seguias in the United States, he brokered the deal that had 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb (USA) relocated to Uruguay.

Be it yearling preparation, pinhooking or sales environments, Angelillo has been across it at some point somewhere in the world. He is one of those high but quiet achievers, and a young man with impeccable, old-fashioned manners.

“I’ve been involved with horses since I was a young kid,” Angelillo said. “But Uruguay is a small, underdeveloped country and horses there are more of a passion. There is not much of a professional market there for racehorses, so in 2011 I decided to go to the US.”

For a number of years, Angelillo hopped around the Northern Hemisphere, and then, in 2013, he travelled to Australia for the first time.

“I thought it was a good idea to be in a Southern Hemisphere country where the thoroughbred industry is very strong and dynamic with a good stallion market and good sales,” he said. “I spent a year here working at Widden, and then I went back to the US for a time.”

By then, Angelillo had visited dozens of thoroughbred farms across the world, learning techniques about stallions, mares and yearling preparation, and getting a solid network of important names behind him.

He went to major race meetings, met owners, breeders and trainers and, for a time, ran his own business in Uruguay selling racehorses.

“But I thought that I was young enough to keep exploring the world and find my own niche,” Angelillo said. “South America is probably not the best place for that right now because there are a lot of political problems and the economy is not so strong, so that’s why I decided to come to Australia again at the end of 2019.”

The best of opportunities

Angelillo landed at Chatsworth Park in the Scone district, and he stayed there for the 2020 breeding season. Thereafter, he looked about for a position that would bring him to a commercial fore, to the major sales across Australia and among major stallions.

“I’ve been at Newgate since February this year,” Angelillo said. “When I was at Chatsworth, I did a lot of research into which farm I should go to, and I wanted to choose a farm that would give me the best opportunities. I showed Newgate what I wanted to do and what my goals were for the future, and that’s how it started.”

Angelillo kicked off his new life at Newgate in the broodmare division, weaning babies and moving mares around.

When the stallion manager’s position became available, he thought it would be a perfect fit and he kicked off the role right after the Magic Millions National Sales Series in May.

“I’m in charge of having the horses in the best condition that they can be for the breeding shed,” Angelillo said. “I think this position will give me exposure to the sales and exposure to the commercial market, and I’ll learn what I need to learn.”

Angelillo admitted that the Australian scene was very different to what he was used to in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s something he is absorbing every day.

“The pedigrees are very different here to the rest of the world,” he said. “It’s still hard for me learning about the city tracks and country tracks because I still don’t know many of the trainers and owners. But I think all this will come with time and that’s why I’m here, to learn and get as much experience as I can.”

The school of Newgate

Like many of the major thoroughbred studs in Australia, Newgate is fast becoming an important school for emerging industry figures. Adam Daley, the farm’s former stallion manager, is a good example.

“Adam is an outstanding guy, and we put him in to be yearling manager so that he could learn all the different parts of the farm from a managerial position,” said Henry Field, Newgate’s managing director. “Sebastian then got put into the stallion manager’s role, and we are blessed with these two guys. They’re top of the tree.”

Field said the appointment of Angelillo was an exciting new chapter for his stallion division.

“He’s one of the most accomplished horsemen in the Hunter Valley, and we’re very lucky to have him onboard,” he said. “The bar I set is very high and the people that have come through working for us are generally at the top of their game.”

In a way, this standard is a legacy that Field inherited from his time with Gai Waterhouse, which was long before his emergence as a world-class studmaster.

“I was lucky enough in my youth to work for Gai, and I spent a lot of time working for her as a kid,” Field said. “She’s had a huge amount of top-class people come through that have worked for her, but she expected such a high level of excellence. You tuned in to what was required to do well, and those are the similarities by which we run Newgate.”

The big league

Angelillo has picked a vintage season to oversee the stallion barn at Newgate Farm.

The operation has headed into its spring books with reigning Champion First Season Sire Extreme Choice, his combatant Capitalist and horses like Deep Field, who has had a breathtaking start to the new racing season by number of winners.

“I don’t try to think about the level of these stallions too much, to avoid putting that pressure on myself,” Angelillo said.

“I’m South American so I love soccer, and being here is like playing for Manchester United or Barcelona. Coming into the breeding shed with Capitalist in my hand, or Extreme Choice, Deep Field or Flying Artie, it’s a thing that I think in 20 years I will look back on and say, 'I worked with that horse'.”

The gratitude from Angelillo for his new role is very obvious.

He said it was an honour and privilege to work for Newgate, and to handle its calibre of bloodstock every day. He said the team was exceptional, including Stud Manager Jim Carey and Assistant Stud Manager Jackson Biers.

“I feel very supported,” he said. “I feel like a team member, but also a member of the family.”

Likewise, he has enjoyed witnessing the differences between Australian farms in the breeding season and those in the Northern Hemisphere.

“I like the way we foal all the mares here outside,” Angelillo said. “It’s not like in the US or in Europe where they’re in boxes or barns, and the yearlings are outside here a lot more too. To me, it’s more natural or more rustic. You build here tougher horses because they get more exposure to mother nature.”

Angelillo said the sales environment also was very vibrant, and he was looking forward to that aspect of his time here, to learning all there was to know.

“I like the sales, I like to be talking to people,” he said. “I like to meet the trainers, breeders and buyers. It’s a learning thing every day for me here because it’s all new. It will take me a few years to get a better idea of it all, but that’s why I’m here.”