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Singleton to sell up racing empire

3 minute read

High profile owner-breeder John Singleton is winding up his racing interests.

HAWAII FIVE OH.
HAWAII FIVE OH. Picture: Michael McInally/Racing Queensland

Leviathan businessman John Singleton has announced he is selling up the bulk of his racing interests, including his breeding farm Strawberry Hills Stud and over 100 horses. 

Singleton revealed he had promised himself he would disperse his stock once he had been in the industry for 50 years and now in his early 80s, had found his interest in the breeding side of the business waning. 

"I was always thinking that fifty years would do me," Singleton told Sky Racing radio on Wednesday. 

"I had noticed this year that my enjoyment has declined in breeding, not in racing or not in gambling, but in breeding. 

"It's such a long process to get a mare in foal, wait for the foal to be born a year, sell it as a yearling or keep it, another year 'til it's a two-year-old. 

"I can't rationally make plans once people talk 'in five or ten years' and you think, 'yeah that will be interesting, good luck'." 

Singleton's bloodstock portfolio will go under the hammer at his NSW central coast property on August 29 through the Magic Millions sales company, in which he was a former stakeholder. 

However, he won't be lost to the industry completely and plans to maintain his shares in a handful of racehorses, including Stradbroke Handicap placegetter Hawaii Five Oh, and the yearlings he has purchased this year. 

"I've got about five or six in syndicates with groups where I'm a minority shareholder and the ones I bought at Magic Millions last year as yearlings, I'm not going to fob them off," he said. 

"I still love the punt, I love the form, I love the horses, I love the foals, but I can still do that with my association with Vinery particularly, and Coolmore, Arrowfield." 

The high-profile owner has left an indelible mark on racing with a number of outstanding horses including top gallopers Strawberry Road, More Joyous and Tuesday Joy, while he famously shouted the public bar after Belle Du Jour won the 2000 Golden Slipper

 


Racing and Sports

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