Newmarket Oral History: Arthur Inglis - Part 2

Arthur Inglis, (b. 1956) speaks to interviewer Virginia Macleod. He grew up at Newmarket House with his parents and two siblings. Educated in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, he began work in the Inglis accounts department after school, booking weekly pig auctions at Homebush while studying part-time for a Bachelor of Commerce at UNSW. When the office moved to Newmarket in 1983, he became closely involved in the expanding operations of the company. He outlines Inglis’ broad scope today, from insurance, finance, advertising and sales transactions to its online auction platforms. The firm also invests in an accounting practice for the horse industry and a stock and station agency in Scone, reflecting the importance of close relationships and informed credit decisions. While thoroughbred sales remain central, they also serve as major networking events where unbiased advice is offered to vendors. Arthur discusses industry changes, including international growth, improved horse transport, and Inglis’ development of a computerised pedigree system. He reflects on past sales culture and the incorporation of Newmarket and Warwick Farm heritage into the company’s new complex. He also recalls childhood life at Newmarket House—ponies, pigeons, open space, and the seasonal rhythms of breeding and sales that shaped his family and community life.

                 I'd just like to ask you a bit about the changes over the years here at Newmarket in the sales and how you run them, what things you feel have changed, particularly like you used to have an old, more open sales ring by the fig tree and in 1984 I think you opened the new one.  Can you tell me a bit about that?

                 Yeah, I suppose one aspect, is the type of people coming to the sale.  It was mostly Australians, very few overseas visitors, and for our premier sale, the Easter sale, number one sale, there was a lot of country people.  A lot of country people, wealthy graziers and so forth, come to the city, they'd go to the races at Eastertime, which is Derby time and Doncaster time, and also the Easter sales were on.  So we’d get a lot of that sort of crowd coming and buying a horse and taking it home to their farm, and racing in the country or the city, wherever.  So the type of people at the sale were different.  When we conducted a sale, when I was a kid, when my father was the only auctioneer – we’d have one auctioneer – and we just had to hope his voice held out.  And we would have a break at lunchtime, everything would stop, and everyone would go and eat at the same place or two places, which were big marquees we had here.  We had one caterer, and that was your choice. And it seemed like if you weren't happy with that, well you were difficult to satisfy.  And it was largely male-orientated, certainly, in terms of the people working with the horses, they were all boys, all men.  And now, to cast it right forward, we have – I suppose, sorry, the other thing I should have said was horses used to come through in drafts, so one particular farm would have three or four horses in a row.  Now, we have horses all drawn in the alphabetical order of their dam, their mother’s name, in the yearling sales, so any particular farm can have horses dispersed right throughout the sale.  We don't select a sale, have the best horses at the front, or the middle or anything like that; they can be anywhere throughout the sale.  Yes, we have marketing in every sense, and not only are we in uniforms, but nearly every farm brands themselves, and they have signage and they have uniforms and they have other marketing material, collateral, to support it.  They usually have people presenting the horse to you, talking to you when the horse is out.

                 What, just before it’s auctioned, or during the parading?

                 No, when you come to inspect a horse, in the days leading up to a sale you usually present yourself to some representative of the farm, who asks you which numbers you want to see.  So they will welcome you, and they will also gather information about you, which horses you saw and if you’ve been there before, and which ones you're seeing for the second time. And they do metrics about the number of times each horse was inspected and so forth, which reads into their analysis of how they think the sale’s progressing for them, or the interest in the sale’s progressing for them, so there’s a lot more professionalism around that.  And you mentioned about hospitality too.  So our big sales would have probably fourteen different marquees here, offering a very high level of hospitality to basically anyone, but certainly anyone interested, potential buyers, of the horses in those lots.  So very much more, you might say, marketing orientated, a lot more comfort, creature comforts, for the purchasers and anyone else too; and a lot more around the presentation of the horse.

                 Including the new ring which is bigger and designed - - -

                 Yeah, creature comforts in the sense that the ring here has been, yeah, as you said, fully enclosed.  It’s equipped – well, the other one was equipped for night sales, but better equipped for night sales; the sale’s less weather-dependent and acoustics and TVs and screens and so forth, all set up accordingly.  And next generation as we move on will be even more so: we’ve got fully air-conditioned and it'll be table seating for five hundred people, with an event kitchen supporting all that.  All the vendor hospitality will be in permanent structures rather than marquees, and they’ll be air-conditioned, and there'll be a lot more space available. And there'll be a lot more focus on keeping horses separate from vehicles and people, so traffic flow throughout the site for safety and comfort of all attending. 

                 That’s the plan for the new stables?

                 Yeah, and that’s been the trend about, I suppose, our general lifestyle here, whether it’s racing or any other event.

                 Hospitality is big, yeah.

                 M’mm.

                 So just you’ve mentioned the new venue, Riverside Stables, which is out at Warwick Farm, and I think you’ve obviously had this plan in the making for some years, and you are moving at the end of this year – well, you're in the process of moving some of the buildings already.  And why did you choose Warwick Farm?  Is it important to be near a racecourse – is that part of it, or is it just a good site?

                 I think it’s not essential, but it is very good to be beside a racecourse.  First of all, it’s equine-friendly, you might say.  So not everyone can be expected to enjoy having horses beside them; whether it’s odours, or noises, or whatever.  So we’ve been lucky because we’ve been here so long that we predate most of our neighbours and we don't really get any complaints.  But we are conscious that we’ve got to keep our premises clean, and when the horses move out and so forth we do make every effort, and we make sure that things like noise, early mornings we keep the noise to a minimum and so forth, and therefore we get aggravation and complaints down to a minimum.  At a new site, yes, like you say on a racecourse, first of all it’s equine-friendly, secondly, we have plenty of space, which is a good think, I think, for atmosphere, and plenty of parking, which is a great asset anywhere in Sydney.  Parking in the sense of a racecourse needs a lot of parking anyway to conduct its events, and because we’re never going to have a sale at the same time as a race, we can share the parking facilities without conflicting.  So there’s lots of good reasons and, you know, at a racecourse we’ve already got things like farriers and vets that will be regularly attending that area.  Feed deliveries and waste removal and so forth is all geared up for that spot, so that all works fine.  It’s kind of logical in that sense. And I suppose there’s nothing like being on a racecourse, to look out at a racetrack, whether or not there’s horses racing there, to give you the sort of atmosphere about when you buy a horse, or the thought about when you're buying a horse, ‘This is where we hope to finish back at.’ and so it works in a number of respects.

                 So you're right adjacent to the racecourse there, are you, closer than you are here, really.

                 Correct.  Yeah, we’re fortunate enough to be able to buy land, which one side of it is actually the straight of the track, and so that was a great opportunity, yeah.  And we’re very happy with the site we were able to acquire.

                 And you're also putting in a new hotel there, themed with things from here, from Newmarket, but presumably that will be useful when the races are on as well.

                 Yeah, we’re conscious of paying respect to all that’s gone before us and recognising and respecting the history and the legacy we’ve got.  So we’re taking a number of objects, and archives, and we’ll be featuring them in several different ways, on that new site.  And it was, it always has been, one of Sydney’s metro tracks - the parts that we’re occupying will be respected as well.  We’ve got objects from the old Warwick Farm grandstand and so forth, in our site as well.

                 Talking about the heritage and the buildings here, are there particular buildings that you like here, that you'll miss when you move to Warwick Farm?

                 Well, the elements that most I think I identify with and relate to warmly, I suppose are those that are being retained anyway.  The house has local significance, historical significance.  What we call the Big Stable, the Stable has got national heritage significance to be retained, as will the curtilage around it. And I suppose most important to our company’s history is the sale ring and related to that is the fig tree - well, there’s more than one fig tree, but the fig tree adjacent to the sale ring – and that has been the place where the transaction takes place.  And if you look at the early photos, although the sale ring has evolved, it pretty much has been on that same site since it started. So I think that’s important.  I would call it the heart of the site in lots of respects.  Not only is it central to the whole site, it’s, what I like to say, where people’s lives change, where the transaction takes place, where you now own a horse you didn’t own before you bid on it, and who knows how that horse will change your life - some of them have definitely gone on to change people’s lives.  So it’s for the vendor and the purchaser: that is the moment and that is the place. So I see that as being significant, and it has been for over a hundred years, now for thousands and thousands of horses.  So, yeah, that sums it up.  The auction ring, which is being retained, I believe will be a children’s playground and community facility and a park, which in the master plan that we sought out was to be dedicated as public open space, ten per cent of our site.

                 That'll be nice.  So it'll be there much as it was and, as you say, the tree and the spot are very permanent.

                 That’s right, yes.  So it'll be part of a big park, and the park will, you might say, go on to be a heart of the Newmarket precinct, because the new precinct, although it’s public open space and readily available and people are warmly welcome to visit it, it'll also be a heart of the whole new residential precinct.

                 Yes, a lovely feature to retain, isn't it?

                 Mm.

                 And tell me a bit about the house, because you say you still live here, and you grew up here as a child.  What was it like?  Because in those days I know that some people kept horses here anyway, so there was more of a presence, not just around sales but all the time.  So do you remember it like that, with stables and sounds of horses?

                 Yes.  I had a pony and my siblings had ponies and we could ride and you could ride in the area and you could ride down to Centennial Park, because, of course, there was less traffic.  There were quite a few stables in Randwick and particularly in this area, not just our own stables, so it was more horsey, if you like, if that’s a word people relate to, but particularly, racing stables too.  So if I came home from school, you'd quite commonly see horses walking up and down, because people would like to get a horse out of the box in the early afternoon.  They do their work early morning, and they would typically take them out for just a little walkabout in the afternoon and quite often they're just walking up and down streets because the streets – although it’s hard to comprehend – they were so quiet in those days, that’s what you could do.  And, now there’s not a horse between us and Randwick Racecourse, not even pleasure horses.  All the stables and vet places have gone, so it’s quite different in character.  The house itself, it has been added to over the years.  It’s not the original – well, it’s the Newmarket Hotel.  You can see where early structure was and it had an open veranda.  What you see now, is pretty close to what it was all my life.  We haven't added much to the floorplan of the house; it’s just been enhanced internally somewhat, but not to a large extent either.  Many of the amenities inside the house are pretty old anyway, and I'm sure it’ll probably have to be attended to as part of the process of renovation.  It’s an old sandstone house; it sits on poor foundation, if any – probably no foundation, I guess.

                 Built so long ago, yeah.

                 One wall wants to fall into Young Street and keeps trying to, but we’ve spent some time and money effecting that – they're attending to that underneath.  There’s the usual things that old houses have, the rickety doors and windows, and the breeze blows through it and it creaks and cracks, and even cracks appear in the wall and there’s a certain amount of dampness.  We’ve got trees that try to grow up through it too; it’s because the trees have been around, their roots go down below it.  But it’s got a lot of character, and it has seen a lot and done a lot over the years, including our family and families before us.  And, look, I suppose architecturally it’s typical of a lot of houses of its era.

                 Not so many of them left now of that era and being lived in.

                 Well, not in Randwick, but you see them in places like Leichhardt and Strathfield and so forth you see them.

                 Yes, but being lived in as a home too, that’s a bit different.

                 That’s right.

                 That has a different feeling from more of a museum house or one that’s been divided into apartments.  And your parents used to entertain quite a lot, I believe.  Do you remember that?

                 Yeah, over the sales they did.  Yes, of course, yeah.  We didn’t have client hospitality, except for the house, in those days, so we had quite a lot of people dining in there during sales.  This’d be what these days you might call VIPs, the big buyers and sellers, and it was pretty much a family job.  My mum and my grandmother used to just roll their sleeves up and - - -

                 Cook.

                 - - - work at it, yeah.  And they had some other people supporting, but it was basically, you know, using pretty much every room in the downstairs area, to put a table in, and people coming along as per an invitation.

                 Your grandmother lived with you?

                 No, no, but she just came along to help out.

                 Right.

                 Yeah.

                 And were you roped into help, the three of you?

                 Oh, yeah, everyone had to do something, yeah.

                 That’s nice.  So you grew up knowing a lot of the racing fraternity just like friends?

                 Yeah.  Well, the racing fraternity is a bit like that; racing and breeding, there’s a lot of family business.  You know, people say we’re a family business.  That’s true, but it’s not unusual for our industry. If you look at how clients, both the breeders and quite often there’s a trainer, whose son is a jockey, who goes on to be a trainer, you know, whose son is and bookmakers whose sons are bookmakers - or not, or they're a trainer or whatever.  And same with the farms: the farms have been handed down through generations, or someone who used to work on a farm now owns the farm.  Australia and New Zealand it’s like that: a lot of people who grew up in the industry, whose parents were involved, they're involved now.  So, yeah, it has been a lot of generational involvement from our family, but from a lot of people we work with.  So, yeah, you asked if they came in the house there, and they're still friends and clients of ours now, yeah.

                 And it’s handed down through the generations.  Tell me a bit about your father.  People speak very fondly of him as a very impressive auctioneer and known as ‘the boss’, I gather.

                 Yeah, he sort of left school early.  He was always interested in animals.  He grew up here too, had a lot of friends in racing, and particularly trainers and so forth.  He spent a lot of time on the road, out inspecting horses for the sales; the part that I said that I don't do, he was more involved in that aspect of it.  He was auctioneer – I always like to think that someone who does a lot of something is quite often the best - he was quite a good auctioneer, but because he did a lot of auctions.  He sold cattle, usually one, quite often two or three days a week.

                 What, up at Scone?

                 No, we had our own premises at Camden, which we still own but it’s now operated by a different agent, and we used to sell at Camden two days a week, Tuesday/Wednesday, and he quite often went the Tuesday there, and we sold at Homebush Monday/Thursday and he’d quite often go to both of those, not always sell at them but, quite often sell at them.

                 And for the horse sales he basically, as I said, he did just go to whoa, did all the horses. And I think he tried to treat people fairly.  He was a great racing enthusiast, went basically to every meeting he could, so a lot of people got used to seeing him at the races.  He loved owning horses himself, as a hobby, basically.  He’d buy a horse at the sale, just like anyone else buys a horse at the sale.  He had a friend from his childhood and the army, Bernie Burns who was his trainer and he trained horses out of the Big Stable.  So my father could go down and visit his horses, and annoy Bernie every morning if he wanted to and quite often did, which is a great luxury, to be able to see your horses that close.  And so he loved going to the races and following them, and people saw him at the races and, you know, knew his face and he related to, as I say, everyone, from the person at the gate at the races, to the chairman of the race club sort of thing; they all knew him.  He liked all sports.  Basically he was a very keen, a couple of periods he was a very keen racing pigeon owner, a breeder, racer and he even liked going to the trots, the standard bred racing.  He was a member of Harold Park, and went there frequently, the football, cricket, all that sort of stuff.  So, yes, a sporting enthusiast and I suppose lots of long-time friends, and conducted this business, very fairly, I think people saw that he was fair to one and all, and if, as I said before, we have to decide on if someone buys a horse if they have credit.  Sometimes people strike problems and have trouble and he’d try and support them through that, and I think a lot of people – some people forget  - but a lot of people remember that and appreciated that.

                 And did he take you with him when he went to the sales and all these events or not so much?

                 Later years, I used to drive mum and dad to the Melbourne Cup, going down to there, and we used to inspect some horses along the way down there, and some other trips, but not commonly. 

                 Not when you were children?

                 No, not really, no.  We might go, say for a weekend if he was going to a farm on the weekend, for some event, like they had a barbeque on or whatever, we went to a few of those, yeah, but not on his horse inspections.  I used to sometimes go with him to the Camden saleyards, when he went up there to sell.  That’d be like say I was on school holidays, I'd go to Camden but not on the big horse inspections when I was a kid.

                 Did you enjoy going to the Camden sales – were you interested in it or was it just tagging along because you had to go?

                 Mostly tagging along, I suppose.

                 Adults talking.

                 Look, they'd let you push a few cattle around – that was all right, didn’t mind that – but the only tricky thing was they went to the pub at the end of the day and, look, it might have been half an hour but it seemed like three hours you're sitting outside.

                 While you waited outside.

                 You’ve just got to sit in the car, you know, and wait and there’s no videogames to amuse you in those days.

                 No, nothing, just waiting.

                 Just had to sit there and wait.

                 Many a childhood memory of that.

                 Yes, a lot of people from my era would relate to that.

                 And how was it - because you as it were stepped into his shoes, didn’t you, or was it a gradual handover?

                 Yeah, I wouldn’t say that, no.  I was joint managing director at one stage, and then I had a sort of different role to him; yeah, different role and different seniority, so I wouldn’t say I stepped his shoes.

                 So did he actually retire, or did he keep working until he died?

                 Yes, he retired.  He sort of stepped down as managing director.  He stood down as auctioneer, and then he stepped down as managing director and he was still involved as chairman of the company and, yeah, he was basically chairman until he passed away, yeah.  No, sorry, that’s not right.  We had another chairman, but he was still involved as a director of the company, yeah.

                 He was still involved, yeah.  That’s nice for him to keep being able to follow his interests.

                 That’s right, yeah.  No, he grew quite fragile, I suppose you'd say, in ill health, but his mind was still very capable.  So, yeah, he knew what was going on, absolutely.

                 And now you work sort of in conjunction with your cousin, Jamie Inglis, is that right?

                 Yep, Jamie’s one of the board members, yeah.

                 Are there any other Inglis descendants involved in the business?

                 No, not involved in the day-to-day operations, no.  My sister is, well, you might say a major shareholder, but she’s a substantial shareholder but she’s not involved in an executive capacity, no.

                 I was looking back through the generations of the Inglis family and I wondered if any of the women had ever been involved in the family business, at least understanding the business.  I don't mean just being married to someone, I mean actually really - - -

                 No, not working, not in a full-time capacity, no.

                 You said it was until quite recently a very male-dominated field anyway.

                 Yeah.  Well, the whole racing and breeding industry was, and it’s nothing like that now but, yeah.  Well, you said ‘recent’ – it’s not that recent, that change.  I was illustrating with, you know, the two extremes from fifty years ago and flashing it forward to day, I suppose.  We’ve had women trainers and riders and strappers and stud grooms and everything for quite a few years now.

                 It took them a while, though, to get recognition through from the late ‘60s.

                 It did, it did.  Yes, if you go that far back, yes, it did take a while, that’s right.

                 Yes, I was taking a longer view, really.

                 Yeah, so do I.

                 And just coming back to when you were living in the house, were you friends with other children around this area in the sort of Middle and Jane Streets and around there?  Because I know there were some families who also had horses there and I wondered if you went riding together.  I know they came and used the old – they call it the old bullring, the area that’s a carpark now.

                 You're testing my memory a bit. 

                 You don't remember?

                 No, I wouldn’t say so.  I remember children of other employees here.

                 Yes, who lived here.

                 And like Bernie Burns, my father’s friend, his daughter.  I remember children of a horse trainer – that was Fred Allsop – his children used to come here but not of other residents in - - -

                 In the area.

                 The Murrays.  The Murrays were around in Hay Street – I remember them.  No, not those others.

                 And when you said you went riding in Centennial Park, could you just go off on your own, you and your brother and sister for the morning or the day?

                 Yep, yep, yep, you could pretty much, yeah.  It sounds irresponsible of the parents and that but it wasn’t.

                 It was different in those days.

                 Yeah, it was fine; it’s not like that risky.  And, yeah, there’s a pony club down there too and I think it might still operate there since it was pony club.  I went there briefly, and it was just like those days, dogs used to wander the street and kids used to wander the street, and it wasn’t thought to be too strange.  But I suppose like I had a couple, one or two ponies that were a bit strong for me and that would be the biggest risk, a horse bolting on you, but not traffic or people.

                 Nothing dramatic, yes.  And did you keep your horses in the big stables?   You said your father’s horses were there.

                 No, no, just go in yards, just ponies go in yards, and, yeah, that’s one thing that’s changed.  We used to have yards for yearlings to go out in in the morning, and we also had yards for broodmares when they came to the sale here.  They’ve been changed into stables now but, yeah, my pony used to just – it was a sand yard and you'd just toss it a feed in the afternoon, or a bale of hay or something, and it was pretty low maintenance.

                 And do you still ride and own a horse, or not?

                 Yeah, my wife and my kids ride, and I ride spasmodically.  I don't ride regularly but, yeah, I still ride.

                 Do you keep them in the city here?

                 No.  Now I live in the Southern Highlands – I live in a house that’s at Sutton Forest, and, yeah, we’ve got a little place there and we’ve got a few horses and ponies.  We ride out there and, look, they’ve got a truck and we go to competitions too.

                 So you're involved still with horses on a recreational level - - -

                 Correct, yeah, that’s right, absolutely.

                 - - - not just a business.

                 Sometimes ex-racehorses but sometimes not; they're just pleasure horses, yeah.

                 And about the house.  So you'll be leaving Newmarket House when you move to Warwick Farm?

                 Yeah.  Well, you said before I live there.  I’m basically there sometimes when I work back late, or when I've got some commitment in the city, sometimes to relieve the hours of commuting.  So it might be one or two nights a week, so I sort of live there in that capacity at the moment, and I don't spend a lot of time there.  And sometimes like the family might come down during school holidays but that’s all because of the same sort of reason: they’ve got some commitment in the city.  So I don't really call it home at the moment - it hasn’t been for a few years but it’s a house I have been residing in – so, yes, I will be leaving that, and it'll be sort of like a gradual process over the next few months.  I'll start having to remove all – well, we’ve already started removing some items from it, so it'll be gradually decommissioning it, I suppose, as opposed to a house.

                 What, looking through your family belongings and memorabilia and books.

                 All that, yep.  Exactly, that’s right.

                 Big job, yeah.

                 Yeah, it is a big job, yeah, because as people would relate to, if you’ve been in a house a long time there’s a lot of stuff that’s gathered, that maybe surprises you, when you start having to decide what to keep and what to move and not move.

                 Yeah.  And when you were living there, did your friends come over after school?  I mean I would have thought it’d be very attractive to have a friend who lived near a stables if they wanted to come round.

                 Well, yes, that’s right.  Not so much stables because there weren't a lot of horses here but, yeah, a lot of space, so it was a good place to play.  And fantastic spot for a birthday party; yeah, we had some pretty good birthday parties.

                 What did you do?

                 Well, anything from like the hide and seek to, you know, have a clown - we had a trampoline.  It’s pretty low-key by what kids do today for birthday parties - - -

                 Yes, fun.

                 - - - but by the standards then it was pretty good.

                 Yeah, and the space.

                 Because you’ve got space to run about in.

                 To run around.

                 Where we’re sitting now in the office was a tennis court.  Yeah, so not that I had too many tennis parties, but just you could kick a ball, or anything, when they're little kids.

                 Play.

                 So lots of games you'd get up to, you know, shooting each other with arrows and goodness knows what.

                 Yes, lots of fantasy space.

                 Yeah, yeah.  And, like I said, dogs can run around and there’s lots of birds, but it was a big garden and you could play anything, hide and seek or tag or whatever, yeah.

                 You have dogs, do you?

                 Yeah, we always had dogs, a cocker spaniel or a Labrador, yeah.

                 And the other people working here, did they have dogs as well?

                 Pretty much, yes, that’s right, that’s right, animals everywhere.  We had chooks too, and other birds but, of course, as I said, my father had pigeons.  So, yeah, there were animals everywhere.

                 And did you get involved with the pigeon racing?

                 Veggie garden and a lemon tree.

                 A veggie garden?

                 Yeah.

                 Did you get involved with the pigeon racing or not really?

                 I actually quite enjoyed helping out.  I wasn’t sort of old enough to properly get involved but, yes, went to the club, Maroubra club, when they used to – I don’t know if you know, but you have to take the pigeons out before they go to a race so you'd take them out.  So I'd go there sometimes, or after the race when they're timing off.

                 So tell me about the race.  Is this when they put them on a train and let them loose in Newcastle?

                 Usually a truck, usually a truck.  Oh, they go a very long distance – it’s a fantastic sport.  They're great little animals.  So from all over Sydney there’s a whole lot of clubs – they make a federation – and his club was Maroubra.  The flyers at Maroubra take a basket of pigeons out. And they're nominated for a race.  They get a race ring put on them, the birds from that club go onto a truck which joins up with other baskets from the federation; they go on a bit truck to a destination.  As you said, it might be Newcastle – Swansea or something would be the closest ones. Then each week you'll find they go further and further north.  They don't change from north to south for each season.  If they decided they're going north for the season, they keep going north; they go further and further north - not necessarily the same birds every week but could be.  And, as I said, in progressives they go out and sometimes the longer races they may not even come home on the day; the first bird home might be on Sunday in some of the longer races.  Yeah, so Saturday afternoon is usually waiting for the birds to arrive.  They know what time they departed and what time they should arrive, if the winds are favourable, so they sit outside and then it’s a race to - - -

                 Watching the skies to see …?

                 Yeah, you’ve got to get the bird in, the birds got to be trapped - they call it trapping.  They come in, they fly under the top of the loft, you grab the bird and pull the ring off and put it in the clock, time off the clock and the winning velocity, it’s adjusted for the place of the loft.  But nowadays the rings have barcodes on them so you don't actually have to catch the bird and ring off.  That’s probably enough on pigeon racing – we got side-tracked.

                 No, that’s interesting.

                 The club was shut down – I was going to say that.

                 Yeah, the old Maroubra.

                 The old Maroubra club is gone now.  I think they're racing somewhere else but the flyers are a special band of people and they remembered my father when he passed away and they were in attendance at his funeral and even released a few birds.

                 How lovely.

                 Yes, quite nice of them.  Yeah, they're a great bunch of people.

                 Yeah, it’s an interesting sport.  Well, I have come across it talking to people but you don't hear much about it nowadays. 

                 Do you feel your life has an annual rhythm because of the sales and the leadup?

                 I think so.  Certainly, there’s a rhythm around a sale, and that may be different in the new location, but as far as Newmarket is concerned, where we are here now, there’s a great deal of activity.  It builds up to a crescendo around a sale, and as we sit here today there’s like normal mode - there’s nice gardens and it’s nice space, it’s quiet, it’s a tranquil setting within the city – but as we build up towards a sale, and as horses arrive you get all the familiar horse sounds and horse noises, and gradually more and more people about too, till really it’s a very cramped, noisy sort of premise, and everyone’s busy.  It’s crazy when you think about it: this little place in Randwick gets Arab sheiks and Chinese billionaires and everything and basically royalty that you wouldn’t get for anywhere, and certainly don't even get for the races.  It might sound funny but those people don't even necessarily go to the races, but they come here for the horse sale.  And then soon after in a twinkle it’s over again and we’re looking forward to next year.

                 And the silence falls.

                 The silence falls to some extent.  So there is a rhythm around the year and there’s also, I suppose, around a sale time – it might sound strange, but there’s also sort of sounds and smells that you associate.  And, of course, because it’s Easter, I suppose, you’ve got Easter weather too, which in Sydney means autumn, so you’ve got that type of sometimes inclement weather, but also you get the cool nights and the nice sunny days, and the autumn colours too.  So, yeah, there’s a rhythm through the year, as you were asking, there’s rhythm through the year as the sales and racing at the peak times.

                 January and Easter.

                 Yeah, and then we’ve got breeding stock sales which flow on from that.

                 And they're in what time, usually?

                 Well, they have varied but, say, in the period from May, through to June we have a sale at Scone, which involves Scone Horse Week and Scone Cup.  The Scone Cup’s quite a big event for all the horse industry, certainly around the Hunter Valley, so our family and staff usually go up there for a few days, and that’s bit of a festival - we do have a sale as well.  And then breeding stock sales, as I say, moving onto middle of the year, might be sometime a holiday occasion, you know, because you’ve got less busy.  And then you work onto selections for next year, so course selections for next year, visits to farms and so forth, and the big racing for both Melbourne and Sydney, which is Spring Carnival and then onto the end of year, which beckons the new sales season.

                 And start again, yeah.

                 Likewise, the rhythm around racing is around now we’re looking forward to the Spring racing and also the start of a new crop of two year olds - there’s always a new crop of two year olds coming through.  We’re sitting in August now - they won't really be properly heralded until probably October, but still people are already talking and thinking about them, yeah.  So I guess there’s a rhythm throughout the year related to the breeding and sales season.  We’re now in the start of August - this is when the foals start popping up - so there’s a lot of photos of foals and interest in what the new stallions’ foals look like.  Then you’ve got racing, then you’ve got the other part, the sales, the first six months is the sales season.  That’s kind of the rhythm.  Sorry, a long answer to your question but there’s various different elements - - -

                 That’s a good picture.

                 - - - to the whole sights and sounds and smells and activities of the year.

                 And you talk about the races.  Do you go to the races yourself a lot?  Is that necessary to meet people and see the horses?

                 Yeah, I like to go to the races.  It’s not as necessary as it was in my father’s day.  Certainly, definitely mid-week it’s not much of an event now anymore at all, but, yeah, I like going to the races and it is important to go to the races to see and talk to people.

                 And to see the horses running, presumably is interesting?

                 Absolutely, yeah.  You can see very well on TV now virtually anything, including I just watched trials at Gosford now, so it’s pretty comprehensive coverage, but it does still merit seeing the horse in the flesh so to speak.

                 There’s always some element in live anything, performance or whatever, that’s a little bit different.

                 Well, you know, I guess we kind of hope so, because, that’s why we build and maintain big premises to sell horses.  If you could sell them by photo or film, you wouldn’t need to visit them, but I think most people agree that it’s hard to take in a horse, without actually, seeing it in person, walking around it, seeing it walk in person.  So that’s another reason to go to the races, I suppose, but another reason why we’re building another horse sales facility.

                 To keep the tradition going, yeah.  Well, looking back, it’s over forty years now that you’ve been working in the firm and what are the highlights that give you the most satisfaction, looking back on your time?

                 There’s a lot of highlights and there’s not one, you know.  I don’t know if I can really answer that question satisfactorily.

                 You’ve enjoyed all your work?

                 I've enjoyed my work, but there’s aspects every year, there’s highlights every year.  I think for me it’s my personal family too: it’s my wife and my kids, where I like to think of my main highlights.  But employment-wise, look, I suppose there’s the standard things about when I first started work, and then when I became a director in the company was quite a milestone.

                 Is that something you had to prove yourself for, or fight for?

                 No, I wouldn’t say so, but I felt I was well capable of fulfilling the role from already my experience and I guess my training.  I'm a qualified accountant and I've done an MBA and I guess that’s part of what’s equipped me for my current role.

                 So when did you become director?

                 Way back – I think it’d be ‘70s, wouldn’t it? [

                 Anyway, we can look that up.  That’s all right.

                 Yeah, sorry.

                 So I just wondered how old you were, roughly.

                 Yeah.  And, look, I took over as company accountant, and I took over as company secretary, and some of those aspects were quite challenging at the time.  I'm very, looking back on it, satisfied with the way I was able to fulfil those roles.  We talked about transporting horses.  Just as an experience, buying horses for overseas, particularly Korea: we bought three loads of horses for Korea.  It hasn’t transformed the history of the company, but it was an amazing thing to be involved in at the time.

                 Did you go to Korea?

                 Yeah, yeah, I've been to Korea a lot over the years.  As I say, it hasn’t transformed our company; it’s sort of not a massive part of our business but it was quite different to what we normally do so it’s a big learning - - -

                 You mean the way of dealing with - - -

                 No, no, just in driving around in cars and having to buy horses out of paddocks was quite an interesting process and then assembling them for export and sending them for inspection by the Korean team that came down and getting them ready to be shipped and then visiting them after they were shipped.  So quite different from a normal auction process, I suppose you'd say.  Sorry, I'd just be going through all the different tasks I've done.

                 It’s interesting too when you have a family business that the assumption perhaps is that various branches of the family are going to contribute but often it doesn’t work as well as that, you know, it doesn’t turn out that way but the fact that you’ve moved into the family business and moved it along, moved with the times and changed but provided the same service, that in itself is - - -

                 Yeah.  Well, I guess history will judge but it’s a question, this whole process, departure from Newmarket.  It’s been a massive exercise in terms of seeking approvals for rezoning, which was supposed to take two years and it took, you know, six or seven. And then in creating the new premises and we’re not yet there but when we do get there, if our customers go with us, and they're satisfied with the service we provide there, I suppose that’s what history will judge, because that’s the greatest milestone in the company’s history since I've been involved, anyway.

                 But looking back from your early company history, I remember you’ve operated in the City and then at Homebush.

                 Yeah.

                 So the moves have happened.

                 That’s right, yes, you're right.  We have relocated our operations many times in the past and survived and thrived so, fingers crossed, hopefully we can continue to do that.

                 Yes.  Well, I wish you all the best for the move and thank you very much for talking with me this morning.  It’s been really interesting and filled out a much richer picture of what goes on here and the kind of work you're doing.  Thank you.

                 Thank you.  It’s been good to be involved in the process and good luck with the rest of your work, and I look forward to seeing how it fits within all your other interviews.

                 Thank you.