Striking gold: Scenic Lodge

Images courtesy Scenic Lodge

Thoroughbred breeding is filled with tales of those who toil for a lifetime waiting to strike that horse who changes everything.

And then there’s David Smith and Scenic Lodge, the rambling, possibly blessed, stud farm that is very much at the top end of the Western Australian breeding scene.

It wasn’t like the stud was an overnight success. It did take a few months. It came after the 1998 arrival of a previously moderately performed Irish-bred sire, who would end up giving his name to the place.

A couple of decades earlier, Smith was a “Ten Pound Pom”, a Geordie-speaking son of Middlesbrough among the later waves of British migrants lured here by the cheap fare that hatched their nickname.

Arriving in 1972, aged 36, Smith decided on the west, settling at Esperance. Soon he set up a farm merchandise business, IAMA – for the Independent Agriculture Merchants Association - and before long he lived the sort of dream Australian immigration officials might have put on recruitment posters in England.

Smith used some of his cash to race some (not especially good) horses in the 1980s. Then came some broodmares. And then, around the intersection of his retirement in 1997 and the sale of IAMA to industry giant Wesfarmers, he decided to become a stud owner.

He acquired Uminga, 50km north of Perth, which was well known to WA racing fans. It had been the training establishment of leading conditioner Ted Hickling, before his protégé Alan Matthews took it over under Hickling’s ownership, preparing four Perth Cup winners there.

A stallion called Scenic

Smith renamed the 250-acre farm Durham Lodge, after his English county. Next he needed a stallion. Smith and son Jeremy drafted a shortlist of six potential purchases from the eastern states. They got knocked back on all six.

One of them was Scenic (Ire). A son of Sadler’s Wells (USA), he was Timeform’s equal top-rated juvenile of the 1988 season.

Bought by Coolmore, he shuttled to Australia to stand at the Collingrove Stud of Colin Hayes and Robert Sangster. A lack of major success – outside of Blevic’s 1994 VRC Derby triumph - led to him staying permanently in the south.

“We thought he was a consistent type who might do OK for us,” David Smith says.

Smith put in a bid in the high six figures, but was knocked back to the drawing board.

“Eventually they got back to us and said, ‘If you give us a million dollars, he’s yours',” Smith recalls.

“We ummed and aahed, haggled a little bit, and finally took the plunge.

“We said, ‘We’d like to buy him after this stud season, because we're not really set up as a breeding farm yet; it’s a training property’. They said, ‘No, it’s now or not at all’.”

Cue scenes of frantic activity, as the Smiths prepared for their important tenant.

“In six months we had to build a breeding barn, serving barn, stabling complex and a couple of other sheds,” says Jeremy.

Happily, far more changed than just the look of the farm.

“He really hadn’t set any worlds on fire, but then his offspring had all these Group 1 wins,” David says. “It was incredible. The horse just turned to gold. I was pinching myself. His value just went through the roof.”

Turned to gold

They came like mushrooms after a rain. Episode won two Group 1 Oaks races in Adelaide in May, 1999. Piavonic took the Manikato S. of 2001.

Chief flagbearer was Universal Prince, who won the Group 1 treble in 2000-01 of the Spring Champion Stakes, Canterbury Guineas and the Australian Derby. Lord Essex took the Ryder S. of 2002, a few months before Scenic Peak won Flemington’s Emirates S.

This curious purchase standing out in Smith’s yard was suddenly big business. Mostly due to Universal Prince, Collingrove leased Scenic back for a year – for far more than his sale price to Smith, at $1.6 million. He then returned west, and the winners kept coming.

Scenic Shot, foaled in 2002, would win a Mackinnon S. and Doomben Cup. Outstanding sprinter Scenic Blast won Flemington’s Lightning-Newmarket double, before taking the King’s Stand at Royal Ascot. That came a few months after one of Scenic’s greatest sons, Viewed – sired in that leased-back 2002 season - had proved his sire’s versatility by winning the 2008 Melbourne Cup.

Scenic had jolted the WA breeding scene, bringing buoyant times to Durham Lodge in becoming the state’s leading sire. He took that title for nine successive seasons, from 2001-02 to 2009-10, a period also including several top-five finishes on the national table. Unusually, the Smiths were sending his progeny to sales in the east.

Sadly, he was taken away in the midst of these golden years, dying of a heart attack aged 19 in 2005. But the luck of the Smiths was rolling again.

Several years earlier they’d purchased Blackfriars, again from Collingrove, again for $1 million. Winner of the 1999 VRC Derby, the son of Danehill (USA) had begun a western boom of his own.

“He actually really benefited from that year Scenic went back to the east,” David Smith says. “That meant he got a good big book of mares without Scenic around. And it’s a bit of a numbers game. In a sire’s early days, you’ve got to get a decent book to give them a chance, and that’s what happened.”

Blackfriars neatly took over from Scenic – after whom the stud was renamed in 2012 – emulating its foundation sire by racking up what now stands at nine WA general sires’ titles on end.

His star offspring, Black Heart Bart, sprung a 100-1 surprise to win his sixth G1 in Sunday’s Underwood S. as a 9-year-old. Among his many winners, Blackfriars also boasts dual Kingston Town Classic-winner Playing God.

Misfortune struck again last December when Blackfriars, aged 21, got up too quickly from anaesthetic administered for a simple surgical procedure, and broke a leg.

“Little did I know that morning that suddenly we wouldn’t have him later that day,” Jeremy says of Blackfriars, now buried on the farm beside Scenic. “It goes to show, you can’t look too far ahead in this business.”

It’s not exactly simple running a stud in the west. The isolation can be foe and friend.

Few top-notch mares are sent from the eastern states, though many made an exception in Scenic’s glory days.

But few WA mares are sent east, guaranteeing Scenic Lodge regular full books. By contrast, stallion owners in South Australia must despair at seeing top local broodmares make the relatively short trip to Victoria or NSW.

But WA’s studs must still cater for their market, meaning service fees are far lower than in the east.

“You’ve got to match the sire to the market over here, so you’ve got to be smart about what you get and what you bring in,” says Jeremy Smith.

Though there are challenges for WA studs, Smith says the Magic Millions company’s recent investment in a new sales complex in the Swan Valley is a positive. Plus, breeding bonuses make WA “a very viable place to race a horse”.

And though the last Blackfriars yearlings will be sold in the new year, Scenic Lodge is well poised to continue to thrive.

Having briefly stood Universal Prince, it now stands another son of Scenic in Universal Ruler, sire of smart black type sprinter Lady Cosmology, as well as Snippetson. Both sires are in the top 10 on the WA table at present, on which Blackfriars still sets the pace. Both stand for $6600, while veteran Dash For Cash still serves a small book at $2750.

“We’ve been fortunate,” says David Smith, now 83 and on “light duties” while the stud is run by Jeremy, whose 16-year-old son Lachlan is also keen to get involved.

“Universal Ruler is starting to hit his straps. He could be another Scenic. The quality of mares he’s had over the past couple of years, he’s starting to produce some really good horses,” David adds.

“I know a lot of times you can go out and buy a stallion and it just doesn’t make it.

“There’s been a lot of hard work involved too mind you, but yes, we appreciate we’ve been very lucky as well.”