Newmarket Oral History: Jamie Inglis - Part 1

Jamie Inglis (b. 1954) speaks to interviewer Virginia Macloud. Jamie grew up on his family’s rural property at Cobbitty with his parents, Dick and Lorna, and two siblings. From an early age he loved riding, helping with cattle, and accompanying his father to sales. After a year jackerooing and learning horsemanship from Jim Hayden, he joined the family business, first selling cattle at Camden and Homebush. He gradually developed his auctioneering skills—voice, pacing, knowledge, and the art of praise—sometimes selling property, houses, and chattels as well. Jamie began at Newmarket as a bid spotter before progressing to auctioneer. He later served briefly as managing director during the company’s transition to professional, non-family leadership, helping to recruit an external managing director, chair, and board members with broader industry expertise. When Inglis closed the Camden saleyards in 2012, he took over broadacre property sales. Jamie describes the long-considered move from Newmarket and the selection of the Warwick Farm site. He reflects on shareholders, the role of women in the business, succession, and the culture that makes a strong family company. His knowledge was shaped by his father, John Inglis, and Jim Hayden. He recalls Newmarket memories—summer Night Sales, the Night of the Stars, and a final farewell celebration in the Big Stable in 2017. He still enjoys riding, cutting, and campdrafting.

0.00         Today is the Thursday, the 3rd of August 2017 and I'm speaking with Jamie Inglis who is Director of Rural Property for William Inglis & Son.  We’re speaking for the Newmarket Stables Oral History Project at the Newmarket site and my name is Virginia Macleod.

                 Jamie, can I ask you what year you were born?

                 Yes.  I was born in June 1954.

                 And where were you born?

                 Camden.

                 Camden, right.

                 Yeah.

                 And your parents’ names?

                 My father was known as Dick, but his real name or his christened name was Richard Reginald, or R.R. Inglis, and my mother was Lorna Mary McIntosh, the daughter of a local dairyman, called Stuart McIntosh.  Actually, they come from a very historic property called Denbigh, very old, very historic.

                 Actually in Camden?

                 Actually at Cobbitty.

                 Cobbitty, right.

                 Which was where I was born.

                 Were you born at home?

                 I was raised on part of Denbigh, which was given to my parents, a hundred acres was given to my parents for a wedding present – a great part of the world.

                 Lovely, yes.  Yeah, it’s very beautiful – I've been down there.

                 It’s a nice area, yeah.

                 And do you have any brothers and sisters?

                 I do have an older brother called Reg, and a younger sister called Roslyn.

                 Right, so there were the three of you?

                 Just the three, yeah.

                 And so you had a very rural childhood?

                 Very, very much so, very rural.

                 What kind of a property was it?

                 Well, when I was youngish, seven or eight, my grandfather – that was Stuart McIntosh – died, and another hundred acres was given to mum and dad, or left to them – well, they had to buy it but it was a good deal done from mum’s family - so that we were on two hundred acres, but my cousin’s place backed onto it – that was the McIntoshes, which was twenty-five hundred acres.  So we rode ponies and spent a lot of time at Denbigh, which was a very active dairy farm, and staff, and cattle.  So we spent a lot of time, school holidays, weekends, etcetera, at Denbigh, I spent a lot of time on Denbigh. Riding.  I did a lot of their stock work for them – I loved riding, still do; it’s been a passion of mine all my life.

                 So when you were over at Denbigh, were you with your father?

                 No, I was with my uncles – that was Ron and Jim McIntosh, two great blokes - Ron is still alive, terrific fellow –and they were always very obliging.  I'd arrive on my horse, and I'd say, ‘Can you give me a job?’ and they'd give me a job, and there was always a job to do, so they'd find me a job and away I'd go.

                 Wonderful.

                 Yeah.

                 So you started that from quite young?

                 Yeah.

                 And what about primary school – did you go to a local school?

                 The first school I went to was Cobbitty.  It was all the kids in one class.  There was about fifteen kids, or twenty kids all in one class.  I think in my year – that was through kindergarten, and first class or second class – there was about three of us in the one year.  Then my parents realised, I think they knew, that the teacher we had would turn up each day about eleven am.  He was an alcoholic.  We didn’t know that, of course, but mum and dad I think twigged, but I was learning nothing, so we were shuttled off to Camden Primary School.  So I've completed my junior school at Camden, and then from Year 7 – or back then it was first year, or Year 7 now as it is – I went to the King’s School at Parramatta as a boarder

                 And did you like school – did you enjoy it?

                 No, no, I didn’t, but I think on reflection, if I was to go to a school, King’s was a great school to go to – I was very fortunate.

                 In what way?

                 Well, I think very fortunate in the people you meet, the education, the experiences, the discipline, the independence I think is very good for you.

                 And a lot of families are actually from rural areas, are they, at King’s School?

                 Yeah.  A lot of my great mates, a lot of my great mates are from the bush, you know, Moree, Bourke, Cowra, Mungindi, Queensland, so, yeah, met some great blokes.  Now, when you live with boys for six years, you mightn't see someone for some time and then when you catch up, it’s just like it you'd spent a month with them prior to it. 

                 Strong friendship?

                 The friendships you make are great; they're very strong.

                 Yeah, especially at that age.

                 Yeah, exactly.

                 And carry through.

                 Yeah.

5.01         And so when you left school, did you know you wanted to go into the family business or what sort of direction?

                 Yes, I did.  Through school holidays, I often went to sale days with dad.  Back in those days, Homebush Saleyards is operating – well, I went to the old yards which is where the fruit and veggie markets are now, and then in 1968 they were rebuilt and moved to where the Olympic stadium is now.  So I used to often go to Homebush, and then also to the Camden Saleyard.  So my father was going to four cattle sales a week, and sometimes five, and I'd often go with him.

                 And were they all each on a different day?

                 Yeah, something different every day.  I'd often go with him, and I knew always I wanted to go into the firm and be a part of it. But upon leaving school I did a year’s jackarooing.  I worked at Bingara for a fellow called Gordon Munro on a big place called Keera.

                 Where’s that?

                 Bingara is just south of Inverell, so up in the New England.  And then I did five months there, and then I did seven months with a fellow called Jim Haydon at Murrurundi, who was an outstanding horseman.  I was always keen on horses and I remember saying to my parents at the Easter Show – I came down with the bulls for the Easter Show for Gordon Munro to help his stud room – you know, he brought down a truckload of cattle to show – and I said, ‘Jim Haydon has offered me a job.’ and I said to mum and dad, ‘I want to take it because he’s a really good horseman and I'm not learning enough about horses where I am.’ And they reluctantly said yes.  So I resigned when I got home, and then started work with Jim Haydon, which is possibly one of the best things I've ever done because he was, just an outstanding horseman.  And that was one of the things that really I didn’t know it was going to be good for me, but he was so big on structure and type, and I learnt from an early age how a horse should be put together, and how they move, and what to look for, because when it came to a thoroughbred game, it was such great assistance to me.

                 Yeah, because you'd had all that on the ground training and him explaining what was good about each horse.

                 Yeah, yeah, and he talked horses day – although it was a cattle place, but we rode horses, we broke in horses, we were educating young horses, riding two-year olds; every day it was horses, it was horse talk. And he was a great teacher.  Now, he could convey exactly what he meant, and he was recognised as one of the great horsemen of Australia, at the time.  You know, he participated in polo, and he was big on dressage, he was in cutting, he was camp drafting, he did everything with horses.

                 Every kind of activity, yeah.

                 Yeah, and he was a good bloke, yeah.

                 And you picked well.

                 Yeah.  And then dad said, ‘You’ve got to come home and start work.’ I would have stayed longer.

                 How long did you stay with him?

                 I was away a year in total - I was with Jim Haydon seven months.  In my holidays I'd go back, and we’d break in horse.  I spent a lot of time with that family; worked for them for seven months and then for the years afterwards I'd go back.

                 You'd go back whenever you had a space of time?

                 Yeah, go back when I could.  And then I bought horses from them; he gave me horses to ride and use.  Yeah, it was a good association.

                 Very important.

                 And I'm good friends with his son – he too is a great horseman too.

                 So it’s carrying on the tradition.

                 Yeah, exactly, yeah.

                 So then you had to join the family firm after that?

                 Yeah.

                 Would you have liked to have stayed working just with Jim and horses?

                 I suppose at that young age another year would have been great, but at the same time, I wasn’t disappointed I was coming back to go into the firm.  I was looking forward to that, which I did.  I came and I started at the Camden business, the livestock business.

                 How old were you by then?

                 And we had a saleyard there at Camden.  So our week consisted, on Monday we’d drive to Homebush Saleyards and sell cattle, Tuesday Camden, Wednesday Camden.

                 That was cattle?

                 That was cattle and a few pigs, and a handful of sheep, but not many sheep; it was all cattle.  And then Wednesday was milker day, so dairy cows, freshly calved cows, forward springers.  Back in those days, a lot of city dairymen, dairymen on the fringe of the city, they used to buy their cows as they required milk; they didn’t keep heifers and calves; they used to go and buy their milk.  So it was a big sale.  Nothing for us in those early days to have a hundred and fifty, two hundred freshly calved cows, every week.  Thursday, back to Homebush Saleyards, and then Friday was often either special store cattle sales, ‘store cattle’ meaning re-stocker, or cattle that returned to the paddock.  So cows and calves, steers, steer weaners, heifers in calf, heifers that no butchers operate, it’s only re-stockers – that was often of a Friday.

10.26       So they go back onto the land to grow?

                 Yeah, so people would sell them and farmers would come in and graziers and buy stock to take home, fatten, grow, make money out of them.

                 Breed or whatever.

                 And the other thing that would happen often on Fridays was clearing-out sales.   If a farm or a dairy farmer was getting out, you'd go and conduct a sale on the Friday, sell his cattle, his farm equipment.  Sometimes then you'd even sell the furniture and the house, sell everything.  They were good days; they were big days, long days and, of course, a complete range of goods, from livestock, to a coffee table.

                 And so you were acting as auctioneer when you were doing this?

                 Not in those early days but it wasn’t long, Virginia, after I started that I started selling - I don't know exactly when – probably eighteen months.  On Tuesdays, which is Camden saleyard Tuesdays, we would have a calf sale that started say at nine o'clock in the morning - we would yard anywhere sort of three fifty to five hundred bobby calves.  Camden in those days was a big area.  There were dairies everywhere, and they used to all sell their week-old calves, and they were calving all year round, so obviously you get that consistency of milk supply, and they'd bring their calves in and you'd sell them, and it was a phenomenal place to start selling.  You know, you'd just get up, and three hours later you'd stop, finish; you’ve just sold four hundred calves.  The first day I started I wouldn’t have sold that many, but after I got going a little while.  And what I mean by ‘great place to start’, great place, just you're relaxed, you can develop a patter, you just get into the rhythm of selling, and you're doing it hour after hour; it’s just phenomenal.  I feel for our auctioneers these days, that start, and they’ve got to start in the ring, and they might sell five or six or eight horses – it’s nothing.  We were so fortunate that we could start - - -

                 What, because …?

                 Actually, my first sale was a charity auction.  We were asked to go to a hall or to a fete and dad said, ‘Righto, well you can’ – and actually my first sale was selling some pot plants, the flowers and pot plants, but good to start on.  And then you progressed into the bobby calves, and then you progressed from that to the vealers, and the yearlings, and then finally to Homebush, where we were selling cattle by live weight, meaning you're selling cattle in cents per kilo and it was very fast selling.

                 This is for butchers?

                 Yeah, that’s all butchers’ cattle, so you had to be pretty au fait with the game by the time you got a go at that.  And then once I got proficient at that then I started here at Newmarket, selling thoroughbreds.

                 And so you had learned the method by watching your father?

                 M’mm.

                 Because you'd been going with him?

                 Yeah, I had a great teacher, had a great teacher in my father, because he knew the fundamentals, he knew exactly the fundamentals and what was required to be an auctioneer.  Number one, be clear and precise, you're in charge, you know exactly where the bids are, whose bid it is.  He says you’ve not only got to try hard, but the perception is you are trying hard, you know, because you're dealing with people’s livelihood.  And that was drummed into myself and my brother, all the time: ‘You must do the best you possibly can and you must get market value for what you're selling.  Don’t sell anything under market value.’ That was our responsibility.

                 A lot to just consider, yeah.  But you wanted to sell it on that day.

                 Had to sell it on the day, so therefore you had to know the market and, you know, markets rise and fall so you had to be quite in tune with what is happening.  And at Homebush Saleyards there was fifteen other agents, and if we weren't first sale, you were second or third or last, you'd watch the sale so you'd know where the market was, and you'd know from the week before, ‘This market’s a bit stronger, it’s about the same, it’s a bit cheaper.’ and you'd also get a feel for markets by the number of stock that were yarded.  If there was a big yarding, you'd nearly think for sure – you know, it’s the old rule of supply and demand – it may be a bit cheaper today.

                 So you're adjusting mentally?

                 You had to follow the sale, and adjust all the time.  That's right, exactly.

15.02       And what about your voice?  Do you have a microphone?

                 No, in those days, no.  We did introduce a microphone, into the selling facility at Camden, which is a ring, and cattle were brought to, and paraded in the ring, and then they'd be delivered, and we introduced a microphone there after some years of selling.  But Homebush was, you know, you'd go from pen to pen – that was just your voice.

                 So moving through, yeah.

                 But, yeah, voices.  Voice, is like training for football, or running, or tennis: your voice gets conditioned.  Now, if I stood up today, and tried to sell for two hours, or three hours, like I was way back then, I'd have no hope but your voice gets fit, I suppose, is what I'm trying to say.

                 Develops, yeah.  But nobody taught you any voice training?

                 I did some speech training.

                 You …

                 I did some speech training, yeah, you know, how to project your voice, but the worst thing you can do is yell.  And I remember the speech trainers also saying, ‘Don’t clear your voice.  That is the worst thing you can do.’  She taught me how to project it so that helped a lot, yeah, helped a lot.

                 Yeah, I was wondering.  Actors and singers and everyone had to do training whether you needed it.

                 Yeah.  She did tell me at the time, I remember she said ‘A lot of singers sip port prior to going on’, I think she said, ‘but, no, that’d be a good idea for you’

                 Depends how much they sip.

                 - - - ‘to smell like alcohol when you're selling..

                 That’s good.  Okay, so you were selling a lot of stock - - -

                 Oh, yeah.

                 - - - and horses here.  When did you start selling horses here?

                 I started selling here in the early ‘80s but, you know, I can't remember exactly.  I started in the firm in ’74.  So I had ’73 in the bush, 2nd of January ’74 I started and I would have started ‘75/6 – probably started selling in about ’76 or 7 out there.

                 You would have been in the older ring then before it was rebuilt in ’83?

                 Yeah, that's right.  I didn’t start selling - I was taking bids then – but this rings a bell at 1980.  I started after that ring was built, ’81 or 2, somewhere there.  I remember taking bids in the old ring most definitely, because I was taking bids from straight out; as soon as I left school, and I came into the firm, I was in the ring taking bids.

                 And your father was the auctioneer then?

                 The boss, John, was Arthur’s father – he did most of the selling.  In those days sales weren't as big, and they used to start say at ten o'clock, and at midday they'd stop for lunch, and then at one o'clock or twelve thirty, quarter to one they'd go again for another couple of hours.  So Boss used to do it.  Dad used to fill in for him if his voice went, or he couldn’t get through.  Dad sold here a bit but not much.  And then my cousin Bill – that’s Arthur’s brother – and Reg, then they started selling.  They would have started selling sort of towards the end of the ‘70s – no, ’78.  Reg would have been selling from about ’77 on, ’76 on, because he sold a high-priced yearling.  I shouldn’t say the high-priced – the first yearling to make 100,00 was sold here in January sale, which Reg sold - - -

                 Momentous, yeah.

                 - - - so that was in ’78, so he certainly sold him.  So the Boss did most of it and by then the catalogues, the sales, were growing, the sessions were getting longer.  The Boss certainly sold and Reg and Bill also shared the …

                 So when you were taking bids, you mean you were standing there in the ring, watching for who’s bidding?

                 Yeah.

                 So you were hearing it all?

                 Yeah, hearing it all, yeah, exactly, and you're selling yourself.  We were lucky in those days: I was selling four days and five days in a week, the livestock. And then we’d come in here when the sales were on, when we could.  Sometimes we’d have to sell the cattle, then jump in the car and come in here and take bids.

                 Straight away, yeah.

                 Yeah.

                 And did you enjoy the process of auctioning?

                 Oh, yeah.  Oh, yeah, I wouldn’t swap it for anything.  If I had my time over again it’d be exactly the same.  Oh, yeah, it’s good.

                 What, both in the livestock and the horses?

                 I'm very rural, Virginia.  I love the lifestyle, I love rural life, and I'm very au fait with cattle, in the cattle game – still am.  I've got cattle on the place, and still very involved in the livestock industry as an interest.  And, as I mentioned earlier, I've ridden all my life so I love horses; they're a great animal and I love looking at them.

20.15       And when you actually do the sale, are you describing the horse, or you picked out features?

                 You do, yeah.  Well, another thing [Dad] Reg’s always drummed into us is ‘you only praise good things.  So don’t praise a bad article.’  So if a really nice yearling came in, yes, you could really express or reinforce to buyers that this is a proper animal, this is the real deal …

                 So it’s a genuine statement as well?

                 Yeah, and I had enough confidence in my judgement, that I knew what I was praising was right.

                 Sounds very satisfying to be able to do that.

                 Yeah.

                 So now more recently you’ve become Director of Rural Property and, as you say, you love the bush and you love the animals.

                 Yeah.

                 But I wondered what exactly that meant in the context of the Inglis company.

                 We’ve always had a property department, or you might call it a real estate division.  As I mentioned earlier, we’d often have clearing out sales for clients.  A client would come and say, ‘I'm retiring from dairying’ or whatever business he had, ‘I want you to come and sell my cattle, plant and equipment’ and then they'd often say, ‘and sell the place’, so once we’ve done all that then I'll put the place on the market.  So we’ve always had a real estate division, and my father was involved in that until I came along, and then after I got some years of experience then I took that over as well but we were never in it full-on.  Sorry, I'll say I was never full-on just purely property: we were livestock, horses and then, you know, Saturday mornings, or some other time you'd might sell a property by auction.  We didn’t sell all our properties by auction but we did sell a good few of them, and it was always a great system and, as you know, in Sydney now pretty much all residential property’s sold by auction.  So we did a lot of property auctions, and then, as, we ended up selling the Camden livestock business in 2012, I said to Mark Webster, our MD, ‘Mark, I think now we should have a good, hard crack at this rural property.  I'd like to take it on and be responsible for it’.  So that’s how that came around.  Prior to that, you know, when we had the livestock business, it was just you couldn’t say, ‘I want to be in it full time.’

                 You're too busy?

                 It’s one of those businesses, you’ve got to be in it or out of it and we had staff that were doing it for us and we were involved on the fringe.  So when that livestock business went, of course the real estate or the property business, we sold it off as well, so separately, and then I took the rural side on.  So when we were at Camden, just to reiterate, when we were at Camden we were selling properties for people and then, of course, someone asked us to sell their house so we sold the house.  And then we started to get into residential, then we got into rent roll, and then before you know it we’ve got a full-blown, typical real estate business, in town.  It really wasn’t our look - we’re a bloodstock business, core business, livestock – so finally we thought, ‘No, that’s not us.’ so we got rid of it.  And then a few years later – or five or six years later – then the livestock business went, but I kept doing a little bit of property as it came along, what I could fit in, and then about two years ago – or over two years ago now – we employed a very good fellow called Sam Triggs, who’s very experienced.  So we’ve got a full division now of support people, and I oversee it, Sam manages it.  He’s got support staff and we’ve been lucky enough to sell some very nice properties in Victoria and New South Wales over the last few years and the division’s going well, I'm pleased to say.

                 So what sort of properties are they?  Are these people perhaps who have horse breeding properties and because they know you they say, ‘Well, would you sell this for me now we’ve sold the stock.’?  Is that still the picture, or have you become like a rural real estate agent in certain areas, or how’s it developed?

25.06       Well, no.  We’re basically operating in New South Wales and Victoria, and we would operate in Queensland if a property came round. And we’re selling basically thoroughbred farms and broadacre properties.  So to give you a feel for what we sold, last year we sold a six thousand acre property at Ballarat in Victoria, we sold a forty thousand acre property at Hay in the Riverina, we sold a thoroughbred stud farm for Sheikh Mohammed, this year, a magnificent twenty five hundred acre thoroughbred farm as good as you'd see in the country.  So there’s a broadacre and thoroughbred farm.  At present, we’ve got thoroughbred farms listed, broadacre farms listed, we’ve just listed a four thousand acre property in the Hunter Valley – it’s a cow and calf breeding operation.

                 What’s a broadacre farm?

                 Broadacre is acreage, so not lifestyle.  Lifestyle is, you know, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred acres - you can’t make any money off them - they're just a place you live and have a bit of fun, but a broadacre is a commercial operation.

                 Proposition, yeah.  And I just wondered, you know, if somebody was selling their dairy farm or any other property, why they wouldn’t sell it with all the equipment?  It’s just not done?

                 No.

                 No.

                 No.  The reason we sold a lot of dairy farms when I started in the firm, was because dairying, there was a quota system in dairying, and I think something happened to the quota system.  The quota system failed, and they got rid of it and dairying became a little tougher – of course, I'm talking the Camden area – and properties became so valuable.  Dairy farmers out there that might have had five, six, eight hundred or a thousand acres, they could get so much money for their land, and they were getting to a stage in life where family wasn’t coming on, they were getting too old to run it and they'd say, ‘Well, no, we’ll retire, sell the farm.’  So it was a whole host of reasons, but urban sprawl, retirement, and dairying was getting a bit tougher.

                 Yes.  I think it’s happened a lot round Sydney, Shellharbour and places like that, same picture.

                 Dairy’s been tough enough the last few years, with what the price they’ve been getting, yeah.

                 So I notice that the structure of the company’s changed in the last ten or twelve years or so.  What’s happened?  Has this been a conscious redesign of how you work or has it been because there haven't been family members to fill certain positions?  How has it come about?

                 Well, I don't know if you're aware of this but my brother was a managing director, Reg.  Did you know that, Virginia?

                 Yes.

                 Yeah, he was managing director for seventeen years up until ’06, and then a group of shareholders moved against him.  So Reg then resigned, and I didn’t want the job, as MD.  I took it over as acting MD for seven months, from December ’06 until July ’07, just to keep the company functional and keep it running, but I didn’t want the job.  I think everyone must know their limitations, their strengths and their weaknesses, and that wasn’t for me.  And Arthur certainly didn’t want it, and we had no choice – but it was also the right choice – to go and hire a businessman, someone, that had a very good feel for what we did, understood the game, understood client service, but also someone that was strong with technology, IT, and also was a businessman and I'm very pleased to say we’ve got it in Mark Webster.  He’s been a great success, great success.  We all get on very well with him – he’s done a phenomenal job.  So that’s how that came around.  It was a very difficult time for me, my family. My father, he was a director of the company but he resigned, I can't remember when but probably the mid-‘90s or somewhere around when he was about seventy five or seventy eight; he said, ‘That’s enough.  I'm out now.’.  His brother, John, who was an outstanding man – Arthur’s father – no better bloke in the world, he remained on the board for some time, stepped down as chairman and we had an independent chairman that came in, a man called Michael Lee.  He chaired the board for some years, and then he resigned early 2007.

30.22       So we didn’t have a chairman for some months, and then till John Coates came in.

                 John Coates and Mark Webster came in about the same time?

                 Mark started before – I think if I'm right, I know for sure Mark started before John – Mark started in July ’07.  I don’t think John Coates came on till October or November, of that year.  When Mark came, it made sense that Mark started and then we selected a chairman and he was involved with – you know, he’s got to work closely with that person, so that was the right way to go, without a doubt.  But John Coates, again he’s been a wonderful success, an outstanding chairman; we’re very lucky to have him.  And the Boss died in, I think, July ’06 and then of course what happened then over the next few months is the shareholders moving against Reg.  It made it very difficult because I wanted to stay in the firm, and not for a minute did I want to see any damage done to the firm, so I stayed and supported it the best I could, but at the same time, of course, my parents are filthy of what’s happened.  My father lived, breathed and ate the firm; he was just so loyal to the firm.  I suppose, you know, it knocked him, he was upset, and it made it really difficult; and that’s the only thing I'd change in my life if I could - I wouldn’t have that again.  That was really tough but I'm pleased to say time heals a lot of things: my parents got over it, they moved on.  Reg now, I suppose sees it as a sense of betrayal or something, you know, but I couldn’t do anything about Reg, that was it.  When they moved against him, I could not stop, that but I had to support the firm, so I did that.  And the firm has been so good, to him and me, and it’s been going so long, you couldn’t possibly go any other way but to see it survive, and that all the stakeholders, the clients and the staff, were supported, and they’ve got livelihoods and family, etcetera.

                 So it was a time of quite a bit of change in the firm when all this happened.

                 Yes.

                 Looking from now, how do you feel about it – is it positive?

                 Well, the boss died in July – when I say the Boss, John Inglis, who was past chairman and managing director – he died in 2006 and he was still a board member in those days.  He died and then Reg resigned towards the end of that year, left.  Early in 2007, Michael Lee the chairman of the board, he resigned - in fact, I was managing director or acting managing director then and I asked him to resign.  And he had a friend that was on the board at the same time, a man called Lloyd Draney and Lloyd said, ‘Well, if Mike’s going, I'm going.’ I didn’t want Lloyd to go.  I asked him to stay but he went so I thought, ‘Well, that's fine, that’s their decision.’  So the chairman went, and a non-executive director retired so then it was just the four.  It was Peter Heagney, Jonathon D’Arcy, Arthur Inglis and myself that ran the company as a board, for some months.  So we then set about – we employed a head-hunter.  They found Mark Webster, amongst others, but Mark was the standout candidate.  We employed him and, as I mentioned earlier, it’s been outstanding; we couldn’t be happier with the role that he’s playing and the job he’s doing.  And then I had known of John Coates, I knew him, and I asked him if he’d be interested and he said yes, so he then came and interviewed.  Mark and Arthur interviewed him and, of course, it didn’t take them long to realise he was a first-class human being, so John Coates accepted and on he came.  And then soon after that Steve Gregg came to the board and then not long after – or maybe a year later – Ian Cornell came to the board.  So at the moment we’ve got a great board.

35.17       And what was their background?

                 Steve Gregg is banking and he spent years with a firm called McKenzies but banking, finance, very strong.  Ian Cornell has got a very strong – I think he went to Harvard, he was a director of the Lowry [Lowy] Group, so Westfield, he’s on the board of Myer, a very experienced board member, and a keen racing man.  He owns a brood mare or two, races a really good horse called Terravista right at the minute.  So they’ve both got great strengths in different fields so we’re very lucky.

                 Yeah, so you're kind of enriched.

                 We’ve really got very sound – great to have non-executive directors who have outside experience, we know about horses and sales, but they complement us with their strengths in [their] industry.  So the company’s changed a lot and for the better.  This company’s never been in better shape, financially, performance, what’s ahead of us, staff-wise, the different businesses that have come in, particularly the digital age, where Mark is so strong with IT.  And anyone ignores that today to their peril, as we’ve seen great companies like Fairfax, and others ignore the internet to their peril and they're not worth a fraction now of what they were.  So Mark is a leader, our company’s a leader in a lot of the IT issues of the thoroughbred game, with repository, with their x-raying, for online cataloguing, and yearling inspections all online, what you can do.  I admit I'm crippled when it comes to IT, but thank goodness we’ve got someone like Mark that’s leading the charge there.

                 Yeah, so you’ve got a lot of database and information that you’ve really got at your fingertips now.

                 Yeah, exactly, yeah.  So there’s been a big change.  And you’ve got to have change, a company’s got to grow – it’s growing – so it’s all very positive.

                 Of course, the other big change just coming up now is that you're moving out of Sydney to Warwick Farm, and I know you acquired some land in, I believe, 2009 at Warwick Farm, and I just wondered how that process has been.  Obviously it’s taken a while – it’s a big move – and how did it go from your point of view?

                 Interestingly, my father who had quite a lot of foresight, he used to say to my brother and I from a very young age, ‘The day will come when Newmarket is too valuable or congested or doesn’t meet our business model.’ and he said ‘We’ll have to move.’  And it was – this is 2017 – probably fifteen years ago we looked at a property when my brother was in charge, we looked at a property called Gledswood, which is out towards Leppington, on the way to Camden.  It was a hundred acre property with an historic house, and we thought that may be a good place to buy, to keep up our sleeve so to speak, so when we did decide to leave here we’d have somewhere to go.  Anyhow, the board all went out, we had a look at it, we spoke to the agent, we found out what – I think it went to auction; it was passed in – we found out the reserve price - I think the reserve from memory, I'm confident it was 3.75 million.  We thought it was a great idea, but it just didn’t grab us for one reason or another so we let it slide.  So then when the subject came up that we need to relocate this precinct now - I can remember as a kid here, over the road there were horses being broken in, there were horses walking up and down the street, there was a saddler round the corner, there was racing stables, there were horses coming and going. Well, now we’ve got a hospital there, a university there, a school here – we really shouldn’t be here. 

40.01       So it made sense that it was time to go, and Mark, to his credit, we had a strategy meeting.  We said ‘Where do we want to be in five, ten years?’ all these things were discussed, and the land at Warwick Farm came up for sale. But before we purchased it we employed a property company to look for another site in Sydney that we may have missed or maybe for sale that we’re not aware of.  They did a search of Sydney, they came back and said, no, there is nothing available the size we wanted.  We needed something twenty-five acres – well, in fact, probably more, because you’ve got to have carparking as well.  So out there at Warwick Farm we’ve got twenty-six acres, but we’ve got a thousand carparks that we share with the ATC.  So when the subject came up, ‘Do we go?’ we were half conditioned; I was half conditioned already for it.  It wasn’t like, ‘Ooh, we can’t leave here.  This is ridiculous’.

                 You’ve seen it coming, yeah.

                 Yeah, we saw it coming.  I remember my father saying, you know, ‘The day will come’.  Well, I think the time was right, the timing was right to go.  Parking here is impossible; getting those big trucks in now down Young Street, is near impossible, again, the congestion here, the parade areas – while it’s a magnificent site, it’s historic, it’s close to the centre of Sydney, but it’s just room, OH&S, traffic, it’s impossible, let alone its value, I suppose to be fairly blunt about it.  So then we went through the process of rezoning it, rezoning to lift its density, which lifts its value, luckily, that process took longer than we had hoped it would but, thank goodness it did, because it worked in our favour because the property price went through the roof and this property went with it.  And I can say for a fact we went to Colliers, they valued it at X, when we sold it, it was exactly double and I'm talking significant money.  So just that delay, in planning - - -

                 Worked in your favour.

                 - - - worked so much in our favour. And thank heavens for the relevant departments making us jump through hoops; that helped us enormously.

                 And are you involved in the development at the new site or not particularly?

                 Well, being on the board, Arthur took control of the rezoning, along with Mark, and being on the board, because in those days, I still had cattle sales and thoroughbred sales and selling, so we were pretty busy but we would get reports at board time.  So day-to-day rezoning, no, and then when it came round to the design, well, everyone chipped in with their two bob’s worth and we saw endless reams and drawings of plans.  Our plans have changed a lot from what we first thought they'd be.  Well, three architects were involved to start with, and then we went with one, and his plans have changed; they’ve been changed, added and deleted.

                 So this is the plans for here?

                 For Warwick Farm.

                 For Warwick Farm, yes.

                 Yeah, plans for Warwick Farm, so we all had - - -         

                 A say.

                 - - - a say in it and then when we hit on the plan we liked, Mark has then driven that, And the amount of work in that is just beyond my belief. It’s an extraordinary amount of work he’s done with consultants and the different people to get it to where it is today.

                 And presumably there’s no model – like there isn't anyone else who’s been developing such a big sale site …?

                 There hasn’t been a sale site, built like this, in the world, for decades and decades, you know.  So putting a hotel on it just makes so much sense; the design of it, the use, the multipurpose use, which is very important.  Like this sale ring here at Newmarket, we actually are only in the sale ring probably fifteen or eighteen days of the year.  The site may be used when people are on site, inspecting, but you build a sales ring it costs millions, but the one at Warwick Farm we’re confident it'll be used for seminars, conventions, plays, musicals and recitals.

                 A more adaptable site.

                 So, yeah, it'll be used quite a bit, weddings.  So multipurpose, very important.  But we’re excited about it and we’re really excited about going.  It'll add another dimension to our company And change for the right reason is very good, not for change’s sake.  This is for the right reason, and we’re moving on and it'll be good, it'll be outstanding.

45.34       Another thing I'm interested in, Jamie, is first of all you talked about the family being shareholders and so how it’s divided now, what sort of proportions, and also is there a rising generation in the Inglis families, or amongst, them who might be taking over the business?

                 Yes.  Well, there is one shareholder, that is not family.  And how that came around, when my brother resigned in end of ’06 he put his shares on the market – and he had a good few – he put those on the market and my father also had a good few shares and he said, ‘Well, if Reg is going, I'm going.’ even though I said to my father, ‘Dad, the firm’s in great shape.  It'll be okay.  I'm hanging on.’  Anyway, so very soon after Reg resigned, Edmond Mahony who’s chairman of Tattersalls, like a sister sales company in England – they're the premier bloodstock agents in Europe – rang me, we had a good yarn.  He’s a very good man, Edmond Mahony – I've known him a while – and he said, ‘Very sorry to hear of your troubles.’ and blah, blah, blah and we had a yarn about it and he said, ’If there’s anything I can do, let me know.’  Because when Reg’s shares came up for sale, the pre-emptive situation comes into play, where they are offered to shareholders first and a price was put on them, so they're put on at a price.  If the shareholders can’t absorb that number or don’t want them, the owners have the right to go to the public.  Now, we have to approve it, have to approve the sale, but it’s very difficult if my father or brother dug up a buyer that we would say no to that buyer but it was very important, I felt it was very important at the time, to protect ourselves, that we find a buyer that we want part of our company, and not an antagonist, or we wouldn’t want the opposition, say, buying a percentage of the company, which could have happened.  So when I hung up from speaking to Edmond, after him saying to me, ‘Let me know if there’s anything we can do’, I said to my wife, Sarah, I said, ‘I wonder if they'd be interested in some shares?  Would they like to participate?’  So the next night I rang him back and I said, ‘Edmond, would you be interested in shares?’  He said, ‘We could be.  I'll let you know.’  So he rang round – he had a board meeting a week or two later – and rang me back and said, ‘Yes, we would be.’ so that’s how that process started so that’s been fantastic.  They didn’t want a seat on the board; they're a passive shareholder; they own twenty per cent of the company. The synergies between the two work really well.  They're a very good operation; they're steeped in history like we are, except they’ve been going a couple of hundred years longer - they were founded in 1756 by Richard Tattersall.  And they had their two hundred – whenever it was – they had their two hundred and fifty year reunion, last year.  Anyhow, great people, great operation and great to have them part of our company.  So, they came out and did their due diligence, gave my brother the money he wanted, and that worked very well. 

                 Now, as far as the next generation – I'm fifth generation, Arthur and I are fifth generation – as who will take over, will there be any other Inglises coming in, well, Arthur’s got two daughters, and I've got a son, and I would like it very much if my son Richard, came into the firm at some stage.  And he’s twenty-seven, so he’s only young, but in time when he gains more experience, etcetera, etcetera, there’d be nothing nicer than to work alongside my son in the firm.  So, hopefully, yeah, there may be Inglises in this firm for a sixth generation.

50.12       Another generation, yes.

                 And then hopefully he has a heap of boys so a few of those will come back in too.

                 So no woman has been – I mean they’ve been shareholders but they’ve never been on the board?

                 There are women shareholders, yes, yes, there are women shareholders.  Arthur’s sister’s a shareholder, Arthur’s mother was a shareholder, there was a Joan Wilson who’s died now, she was a shareholder, but they are all family.  No female yet on the board – that'll change, yeah, absolutely that'll change in time.

                 I mean it’s changed in all the other parts of the - - -

                 And probably in time, a female may well head the company and maybe our next chair is female, so all of those things are most definitely possible.