A full stop at the end of Pritchard-Gordon's Cornerstone chapter

Cover image courtesy of Cornerstone Stud

The close of Wednesday’s Inglis Digital sale will signal the end of a chapter at South Australia’s Cornerstone Stud, who are dispersing their entire breeding portfolio through the platform. The decision hasn’t been spur of the moment for John Frankhuisen and General Manager Sam Pritchard-Gordon, who disclosed that the decision had been 12 months in the making.

The operation will close its doors after the sale, calling time on over 60 years of racing and breeding history at the site.

A calculated decision

Located on the original Lindsay Park site in Angaston, Cornerstone had long been cultivated by Sam Hayes, grandson of Colin Hayes, since 2005 and the stud officially took the Cornerstone moniker in 2011. It had been in the hands of the Hayes family since Colin Hayes purchased the site 1965 and a number of well known names had graced the stallion barn over the years, including Scenic (Ire), Without Fear (Fr), Godswalk (USA), Bluebird (USA), and more recently Sir Prancealot (Ire), Good Journey (USA), and Valentia.

Despite the rich history of horses on the property, the reality in the modern day has not been so prosperous. The struggle of keeping a stallion farm afloat in South Australia, with local stallion and mare numbers continuing to dwindle, took its toll on Sam Hayes, who sold out of the operation in mid 2023 to long-time business partner Frankhuisen.

Pritchard-Gordon remained as manager, as well as taking on half ownership of the farm itself. The duo pivoted the operation away from stallions and towards what was commercially viable; a smaller broodmare band of high quality mares, agisted clients, and pinhooking weanlings to produce higher results in a shorter period of time.

While they have had plenty of successes in the years since, it has become apparent to both Frankhuisen and Pritchard-Gordon that continuing was not going to be an option.

“Twelve months ago, John said, ‘Sam, I’m just nervous about putting more money into the business’,” Pritchard-Gordon said. “He said, ‘if you could find someone who’d be willing to take on the responsibility and carry the farm through then you’d have my blessing’.”

With no takers for the business since that conversation, Pritchard-Gordon and Frankhuisen discussed their options and came to the decision that their best option would be to wind up operations.

“It’s not easy in a contracting environment, and that’s not just South Australia, that is the breeding industry as a whole. Being on the periphery of that, and carrying a lot of hereditary debt made it a very difficult task.”

Chicken or the egg

The pivot away from stallions in 2023 had been a conscious choice when being realistic about the South Australian landscape. The last decade has seen a marked contraction in the number of stallions nationwide, particularly those serving smaller books, and the state’s stallion population has dwindled from 29 in 2017 to just eight in 2025, with only five currently confirmed to be standing in 2026.

Just 86 mares were covered by those eight in 2025, versus 290 covered by 16 stallions in 2021. There were 211 foals born in the state last year, almost half the 391 born in South Australia in 2021.

“Without stallions in the state, the broodmare population isn’t exactly blossoming,” Pritchard-Gordon said. “It’s just ageing. And there is no one replenishing the stallions, in part because there are no mares to visit them. It’s a chicken or the egg situation.

“I personally feel like the South Australian racing industry has done a really good job in the last four or five years to improve themselves. They have certainly hit the bottom of the bell curve and are now rising. It's well managed, the prize money is improving, but it’s probably arrived too late to give the South Australian breeders a commercial stallion to consider utilising.

“At the same time, the industry is becoming increasingly ‘big business’ minded, and if you aren’t a part of those big businesses, then there really isn’t much room to thrive, or even survive.”

Carving out their own niche in the southernmost mainland state, Cornerstone has still enjoyed plenty of high points over the last four years, including selling G2 Queen Of The South winner Caste (Sir Prancelot {Ire}) for clients at the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale in 2021, then selling her as a broodmare in 2025 for $255,000.

The Speed Machine (Hanseatic) has been one of his sire’s highlights last racing season, winning his first two starts as a 2-year-old, and the operation also saw graduate Shiki (Too Darn Hot {GB}) strike in the G3 Gimcrack Stakes last spring.

“Selling horses, good horses, has always been a high point,” said Pritchard-Gordon.

The latest highlight came just last Saturday, when Cornerstone-bred Sir Now (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) rose to the occasion to claim the G3 Behemoth Stakes.

Commercial decision making

Hence the turn to sourcing stallions out of state and purchasing weanlings to pinhook. In 2021, a group of Cornerstone clients invested in four European mares to send to Frankel (GB), yielding $925,000 in 2023 for a colt weanling and $725,000 for a yearling colt. The following year, a yearling filly made $400,000.

Proven sires Toronado (Ire), Wootton Bassett (GB), Ole Kirk, and The Autumn Sun have delivered some of their other greatest success since Hayes’ exit; in 2023, they sold a $420,000 Toronado colt at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale and, in 2025, Tom Magnier paid $420,000 for a Wootton Bassett weanling colt they presented at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Weanling Sale.

From the same draft, Riverstone Lodge, Bevan Smith Bloodstock, and Suman Hedge Bloodstock (FBAA) paid $200,000 for an Ole Kirk filly out of Jest Excel (Exceed And Excel), who Cornerstone is offering as a dry mare this week.

“It's been a conscious decision by the stud for the last four years since John's taken over to try and create stock that is commercially well received,” Pritchard-Gordon said. “The balancing act has been to choose stallions that sales companies want, but also not be one of 200.”

With that in mind, the mares selling this week are in foal to the likes of Vandeek (GB), Starlust (GB), Schwarz, Celestial Legend, Henry Longfellow (Ire), and Storm Boy, all whom await their first crop of foals this spring. Likewise, the yearlings on offer are by Bivouac, Maurice (Jpn), Diatonic (Jpn), and Lofty Strike.

Nevertheless, Pritchard-Gordon understands that this is no guarantee of success.

“It is just part and parcel of running a commercial operation,” he said. “The business isn't folding up because we've made poor commercial decisions. The business is folding up because we started off with a large hereditary debt and it was hard to generate consistent cash flow without a growing adjacent component to the business.”

When competing against the studs situated closer to the major sales and when it costs more to send your mares further to reach the stallions you want to use, the margins become slimmer and slimmer. With the market also increasingly particular about what they want, it has been simply “getting more and more difficult to land one into the bullseye”.

A proven source for stars

Past Lindsay Park dispersals have provided some rich pickings for those that have taken notice of them, and there is a hope that the potential can be recognised yet again in this week’s draft.

At a Lindsay Park dispersal in 2002, Peter Devitt and Les Gordon bought out the other ownership in Nicola Lass (Scenic {Ire}) and sent her to Bianconi (USA) in 2004, producing now-Widden Victoria resident Nicconi.

In the same sale, Alistair McFarlane bought Gift Bouquet (King's High) in foal to Jeune (GB). The resultant foal was G3 Adelaide Guineas and five-time Listed winner Blahnik. Gift Bouquet would also produce Listed Cinderella Stakes winner Elysees (Statue Of Liberty {USA}) for McFarlane, but she saved the best for last with The Inevitable (Dundeel {NZ}), who won 12 stakes races topped - fittingly, given his heritage - by the G3 CS Hayes Stakes.

McFarlane had also bought Beat The Bullet (Bite The Bullet {USA}) from a Lindsay Park dispersal two years prior in 2000 - a mare that would also produce him three stakes winners, highlighted by G1 VRC Oaks and G1 Arrowfield Stud Stakes victress Hollow Bullet (Tayasu Tsuyoshi {Jpn}). On the same day that Hollow Bullet struck in the Oaks, her half-sister Red Hot Mama (General Nediym) won the Listed Myer Stakes.

Beat The Bullet also hit the board with her last foal, Last Bullet (High Chaparral {Ire}), who won the G3 SAJC Breeders' Stakes almost 10 years after his sisters’ stakes double.

The 2002 dispersal was a particularly fruitful one, as John Singleton was able to purchase Biscay Bird (Bluebird {USA}), in foal to Danehill (USA), for $850,000. Already the dam of four-time Group 1 winner Universal Prince, she produced Universal Queen (NZ) (Scenic {Ire}) in 2003, whose four stakes wins were highlighted by the G1 Robert Sangster Stakes.

The aforementioned Jest Excel stands out as the horse who could repeat the pattern. Cornerstone sold her Too Darn Hot (GB) weanling filly in 2024 to Riverstone Lodge and Hedge, who reoffered her as a yearling to Kurrinda Bloodstock. Named Shiki, her Gimcrack win put her dam’s name up in lights. Her Ole Kirk half-sister made $380,000 at this year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Jest Excel was not served after foaling a filly by Artorius in late November.

While Pritchard-Gordon hopes the same potential rests in this week’s Cornerstone dispersal, he is most concentrated on ensuring that the end of this chapter is a smooth one.

“The modus operandi is to get this tied up as well as I can do, and the nice thing is that John’s going to honour all creditors,” he said. “We have a commercial agreement with the farm and we will make plans on what happens with it after the sale.

“Hopefully these horses sell well, and it allows us to tidy up the business and put a permanent full stop at the end of it all. We have done as good a job as we can.”