Shadow Hill shooting for its sixth year of Premier growth

Cover image courtesy of Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds

There are 66 vendors this week at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale, among them the family-owned, Avenel-based Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds. Owned and operated by Kim and Dale Alderton, this farm has operated since 2013.

If the Alderton name rings any bells in distant memory, it’s because both Kim and Dale worked at Eliza Park in management roles for 18 years. As such, they’re old hands in Victorian circles, which helped them kick-start their farm a decade ago.

Set into rolling country around Avenel, Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds is 180 acres of former sheep property. From scratch, the Aldertons built fences and designed paddocks, yards and stabling. They even had to build a home.

“From the ground up, we’ve done it all ourselves,” said Kim Alderton, speaking this week with TDN AusNZ. “Everything had to go in, but we realised pretty quickly that it was a very good property and it carried very good numbers.”

Business is good at Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds. The couple recently bought a neighbouring 200 acres, and Alderton admits that they’re turning away new clients more often than advertising for them. Part of that is because they brought a strong reputation with them to Avenel.

“Our intentions were to move in here and remain boutique,” she said. “Having worked on other farms with huge numbers, we wanted to have a tidy, boutique operation for ourselves. Our first year or two we had only 20 or so permanent mares, but up in the breeding season this year we had 140, foaling 77.

“Those are our maximum numbers, really. We want to enjoy our job and look after the farm, in terms of not overstocking and so on. Our intention is to not become a massive operation.”

Alderton’s years at Eliza Park were as a broodmare, farm and stud manager. She ran the Berrigan property, where much of the broodmare activity occurred. When Berrigan was closed, she went to Paringa Park at Nagambie, which was leased by Eliza Park and, later, Sun Stud.

Between them, the couple gained priceless insight into highly commercial, large-number farms, making them confident and qualified when opening Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds.

“I brought with me a broad knowledge of every area,” Alderton said. “I started at Eliza Park six months after it opened, and I went through every area from assistant broodmare manager to assistant yearling manager, then broodmare manager to running the New South Wales division, weaning and handling the yearling prep.

“Eventually I was stud manager and I think knowing each aspect of the game has been really valuable.”

A nicely rolling stone

Shadow Hill’s draft this week numbers 11, which mirrors its 2022 draft at Melbourne Premier. Last year, its best-seller at this sale was a Written Tycoon filly from Foxy Housewife (Foxwedge), who is unraced with Joseph Pride and now named Urafiki.

Four of the Shadow Hill yearlings last year sold for $200,000 plus, and six of the 11 made six figures. It’s been a nicely rolling stone for the farm from its inaugural Premier draft of just two in 2018.

“Our first year, we just had two and we felt that would roll along,” Alderton said. “At that point, Sun Stud had decided not to continue and a lot of the clients were looking for somewhere to send their mares, which was the reason we started our own business early.

“It went from there, really. A lot of people knew us from our 18 years at Eliza Park and Sun Stud, so word of mouth really helped us along. We had really good clients from the start and, while the numbers were small initially, we’ve not really had any trouble growing to the numbers we’re at now.”

Among the Shadow Hill clients are the likes of Rifa Mustang, Rob Roulston and Tanami Transport magnate Viv Oldfield. There are many others, and their loyalty has been appreciated by Alderton.

“We have a really good group of clients and we really want to look after them,” she said. “That means quality over quantity, which can be hard sometimes because we get a lot of people calling. We don’t want to be turning people away but, at the same time, we want to do the right thing by the farm, our existing clients and by our staff.”

Natural progression has seen the couple's Premier presence grow from two yearlings in 2018 to four the next year, three six-figure horses in 2020, and then 12 yearlings or so the last three years.

Alderton said she could easily balloon the numbers to a draft of 30, but up to 15 is her sweet spot.

The draft

The Shadow Hill draft this week represents nine individual stallions. They are from such locals as Brazen Beau, Puissance De Lune (Ire), Shamus Award, Alabama Express and Toronado (Ire).

Gallery: Stallions of Shadow Hill's 2023 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale draft

Inglis Premier is a home sale for Victoria, so you’d expect a good showing of home-standing sires, but Shadow Hill also has an Extreme Choice filly (Lot 168) and another by Zousain (Lot 156), both sires standing north of the border.

“It’s a really nice draft, which is already the feedback we’re getting,” Alderton said. “All but four of these yearlings belong to our clients, and all bar one were raised on the farm.

“The Extreme Choice was born and raised with us for Peter Anastasiou, who’s another good client of ours. He owns her and Lot 222 by Shamus Award, and those two mares are resident with us. The dam of the Extreme Choice filly arrived to us in foal and she (Lot 168) is a lovely type. The stallion is doing a great job too and she’ll be well-received.”

Lot 815, by Puissance De Lune, hails directly from the family of Mimi Le Brock (Show A Heart). Lot 156 is from Soul Mama (Charge Forward), a full sister to the dam of Zoustar sisters Sunlight and Sisstar.

Shadow Hill throws its weight into the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale each year, meaning its best come to Oaklands. It has consigned horses with Sledmere and KBL Thoroughbreds in the past, but this only occurs when horses head to Sydney or the Gold Coast.

Gallery: Lots offered by Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds at the 2023 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale

“We often get asked what horses we've had come off the property, but in those earliest years we had only 10, maybe 15 maximum weanlings,” Alderton said. “From those, a few good 2-year-olds emerged. We had Cut It Out, Galactic Express and Ashford Street, which was nice for a little farm still get going.

“Those horses are still running on, so they’re showing longevity and we feel we’re not far away from cracking that really good Group horse.”

The Victorian picture

Alderton is expecting a positive week at Oaklands. The draft feedback has been good and, in her own words, it’s one of the best-presented she can remember. With so many years at the helm of a Victorian operation, is there anything about the state’s breeding industry now that differs from all her years at Eliza Park?

“I think Victorian breeding is starting to be more recognised,” she said. “There have been a lot of champion racehorses that have been bred in Victoria, and we had Black Caviar’s mum at Eliza Park, for example.

“It also seems like there are a few people who specifically target the Melbourne sale, so it really isn’t a sale for just that second tier. You can find really good value here from really good pedigrees.”

As such, the Premier Yearling Sale has come into its own, and that’s to the benefit of smaller breeders like Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds. Alderton said the VOBIS Scheme has played its part, helping participants within the industry, but also bringing in new participants.

“We’ve also enjoyed huge improvements in the stallion ranks down here,” she said. “We’ve been lucky with Written Tycoon, but even Widden bringing Nicconi down. Nicconi is a good stallion for the Victorian market, so all of it has really come together.”

Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds can be visited this week at Barn H at Oaklands Junction as the team knuckles down for its sixth appearance at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale.