Cover image courtesy of the National Trust
The Hobartville S. has been run consistently in Sydney since 1925, in that year won by the effusive Amounis (Magpie {GB}). It was a good start for a race that would become a mainstay on the calendar, and it was a start that largely continued.
Early winners of the Hobartville included the crack speedsters Mollison (Seremond {GB}) and Veilmond (NZ), then Flight (Royal Step) and Shannon in the 1940s. Todman won it, so too Baguette and Marscay, and more topical winners are the likes of Pierro, The Autumn Sun and Anamoe (Street Boss {USA}).
But like so many of Australia’s key races these days, the genesis of the Hobartville S. is widely unknown.
In fact, it shares a similarity with races like the Fernhill H., Chipping Norton S. and Ramornie H. because the Hobartville S. was named in 1925 after the very old property Hobartville.
Hobartville homestead | Image courtesy of the National Library of Australia
The original Hobartville Stud, which kicks right back to the earliest days of land grants in the Hawkesbury, was acquired by Captain William Cox in the 1820s. It wasn’t a large estate by standards of the day, but it was lush and rich in grazing, and planted extensively with English oak trees.
Hobartville was a short hack from the township of Richmond, and some 40 miles or so from the fattening settlement in Sydney Cove. When local man Andrew Town bought it in 1877, it flourished in an era of unforgettable colonial breeding.
Town established a unique broodmare band that included the imported Rosedale (GB) (Tynedale {GB}), which was later responsible for such horses as Poseidon and Windbag. Town raced the AJC St Leger winner Cap A Pie, and in 1881, Hobartville stood the brilliant, undefeated Grand Flaneur.
Gallery: Images of Grand Flaneur and Trenton, sires who stood at Hobartville Stud
About this time, the remarkable sire Trenton (NZ) stood at the property for a season in days when Hobartville hosted an annual yearling sale “under the oaks” each January. Special trains were organised from downtown Sydney, and a luncheon was provided for up to 300 racing folk in a marquee. It is said these were the first public yearling sales in New South Wales.
But Town’s fortunes by 1886 were in reverse, which led to him selling Trenton to St Albans Stud for 3000 guineas and, eventually, Hobartville fell into the hands of its mortgagees, William Long (who featured in this series last year) and George Hill.
It is written that Town felt the loss of Hobartville significantly, which was a common conversation after his death from typhoid fever in 1890. Thereafter, Hobartville remained in the hands of Long and Hill for about a decade until May 1900, when it was bought by Percy Reynolds.
Andrew Town | Image courtesy of Hawkesbury Library
The Reynolds family controlled the property until 1959, a long tenure, after which it was sold to the Service Pastoral Company with two stallions and 25 thoroughbred mares thrown in. The new owner was Lionel B. Israel, who also had Segenhoe Stud.
In 1978, Hobartville was bought by Grahame Mapp, and these days, marvellously, it is still a thoroughbred farm.
Through all of its various ownership, Hobartville remained a solid standing of ancient trees and Georgian architecture. Its homestead is famous to this day, National Trust-listed and built of red brick and cedar fittings with an elaborate stone-floor verandah.
Its ‘grand air of ripe antiquity’ is everywhere and, along with the race named in its honour this weekend, it is a grand monument to the thoroughness and thoroughbreds of times long gone.
