Following the recent close of a successful breeding season and Darley’s purchase of the Woodlands stallions earlier in 2008, Darley has announced it will reorganise the location of its stallion line-up in 2009.
Darley’s stallions will be primarily divided between its purpose-built stallion farms at Aberdeen in NSW and Seymour in Victoria. Approximately two thirds of the stallion roster will stand at Aberdeen and the other third at Seymour. A definitive list of where each stallion will be standing will be announced in the coming months.
Darley’s Denman property, also in NSW, will become the focus of Sheikh Mohammed’s private breeding operation and the Cootamundra stud will continue to stand a relatively small number of stallions.
Henry Plumptre, Darley Australia’s managing director said, “Our stallions received tremendous support from Australasian breeders in 2008 and while the season was progressing we were also busy planning for 2009.”
He continued, “We have decided to relocate the Woodlands stallions, chiefly those that have stood at Denman, to our studs at Aberdeen and Seymour with the aim of streamlining our commercial stallion operation. Foremost in our minds is our desire to continue to provide the simplest breeding options for our clients so standing our stallions at two main farms instead of four is ideal.”
In addition, during early 2009 Darley will phase out the agistment of third-party mares at Denman. Plumptre commented, “During recent years there has been an emergence in the Hunter Valley of a number of very professional boutique broodmare farms that offer a quality and complete mare service which have more than satisfied demand. We also discovered that the numbers of third-party mares residing at Woodlands has been exponentially declining and with Darley’s broodmare band in Australia now numbering approximately 450, Denman will focus in future on Sheikh Mohammed’s private breeding concern.”
The realignment also brings leadership change at Darley’s studs. Highly respected and long-standing stud manager, Peter Flynn will step away from the day-to-day management of Denman and Cootamundra and will take on a stud consultant role with Darley in 2009. John Sunderland will become stud manager of Denman and Barley Ward-Thomas will become the stud manager of Aberdeen.
