Macedon Lodge reopens, Howley and Forsman move in

Cover image courtesy of Macedon Lodge

When Macedon Lodge emerged on the market in February last year, speculation was rife about the facility’s industry future. However, upon its purchase by business tycoon Bruce Dixon, a deal sealed in July, there was promise that the property, so excellently developed by Lloyd Williams, would remain a training facility.

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That was confirmed on Wednesday with the announcement that Macedon Lodge, under Dixon’s ownership, will become a commercial, full-service training operation from March 1.

It will house trainer Liam Howley, who has already spent a decade on the property with the Williams family, and it will also house a satellite stable for Kiwi trainer Andrew Forsman.

Howley and Forsman will be the first two commercial trainers to join Macedon Lodge. In the future, there could be more. The new operation has recruited Matt Tillett as its general manager and Mark Player as its chairman.

Tillett has significant experience in the racing and breeding industry. He has a Bachelor of Commerce, and has worked for Magic Millions, Darley Australia and Woodside Park. He was racing manager at the McEvoy-Mitchell yard and, as recently as last year, he held the same role under trainer Mathew Ellerton.

For Player, the chairmanship position at Macedon Lodge comes amid a long, successful career in the industry. Player is a former CEO of New Zealand Thoroughbred Marketing (NZTM) and former director for equine business development at Racing Victoria.

He’s held positions with the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) and is the Australasian agent for Goffs, and his bloodstock consultancy firm, International Thoroughbred Solutions (ITS), is well-respected worldwide. Player is a member of the Federation of Bloodstock Agents Australia (FBAA), but he still found time for the next phase of Macedon Lodge.

“It really is a new chapter in the life of possibly one of the world’s best training facilities,” Player said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “It’s a facility that’s very dear to a lot of people, and it’s a facility that has a very bright future. So I think a lot of people are going to be excited about this news and look forward to having horses trained there, and people will be genuinely excited to see this property used in a new way.”

Macedon Lodge sits in very pretty country at the foot of Mount Macedon, Victoria. It’s only 45km from downtown Melbourne, making it prime real estate for a lot of things.

After 17 years of owning Macedon Lodge and more than $30 million spent in developing it, Williams admitted early in 2022 he’d found it too high-maintenance to keep.

The property had been good to him, producing such horses as Efficient (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ}), Green Moon (Ire) and Almandin (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}), all Cup winners, along with the likes of Zipping (Danehill {USA}) and Fawkner (Reset), but Lloyd was pushing 80 years old.

Gallery: Some of the Group 1 winners produced on Macedon Lodge, images courtesy of Sportpix

“There was certainly a chance that it could have sold to anyone,” Player said. “The property was for sale and while the Williams team, I’m sure, wanted it to remain in racing, they had to take a commercial approach to selling it.

“It could have ended up a convention centre or an equestrian facility, so we’re fortunate as an industry that Bruce saw the property and loved it enough to buy it. He’s got a vision now for what can be done with it and how it can be taken forward, and it’s a fantastic result all round for the industry.”

Something different

Dixon’s purchase of Macedon Lodge was reported last July in the Australian Financial Review. It is speculated that the price-tag was around $20 million, significantly more than the $5.1 million Williams paid for the property in 2005 when buying it from Kurt Stern.

Dixon is a well-known business tycoon. He is a former executive of Healthscope and Spotless, and his company, the Melbourne-based Dixon Hospitality Group, owned pubs and venues across the country, from Melbourne to Sydney’s newst enclave, Barangaroo.

In 2017, Dixon sold a majority share of his hospitality company to KKR, which operates Australian Venue Co., and as recently as 2021, he bought into a state-of-the-art equestrian facility on the Bellarine Peninsula. Turnberry Equestrian Centre was relisted for sale in September, presumably because of Dixon’s purchase of Macedon Lodge.

“Upon purchasing the property (Macedon Lodge), the Williams family proposed to lease back the facility for several months,” Dixon said in a statement on Wednesday. “This gave me time to develop a model to fully utilise the incredible horse facilities and make it the ideal place to work or own a horse.

“I’ve brought in two respected racing industry people to help me develop the new model, Matt Tillett and Mark Player.”

Player first visited Macedon Lodge three years ago when the Williamses first listed the property commercially. Mid-last year, he met Dixon after the transaction and they had a chat about its future.

“We spoke about what could be done with the property and the best way to use it,” Player said. “Bruce and I quickly came onto the same page, and Matt Tillett was in those conversations as well. We looked at how we could have a bit of a paradigm shift in terms of what training meant.

“Could we set it up so that trainers could have a better work-life balance? Do they really have to start at 4am in the morning? Could they start when it’s daylight and could that be better for trainers and better for staff? What impacts would that have as we went forward?”

Dixon was onboard with all of these conversations. He wanted to do something exciting but also something different, “possibly industry-leading” according to Player.

“We’ve spent many months modelling how it can work and what it can do,” he said. “Then we approached some young trainers who would buy into the process and buy into what we were trying to achieve, and really benefit from being involved with one of the great training properties of the world.”

At this point, Liam Howley and Andrew Forsman’s satellite yard will be the only outfits in residence, but that could change.

“We’ll start with two and then everything depends on how we grow the facility, particularly in terms of stabling,” Player said. “It could get to three or four over time, but it’s early days yet. We go into the property on March 1 so we’ll see how we go from there.”

Howley, Forsman move in

In a statement released on Wednesday, Howley said he was delighted to be ‘returning home’ after a decade spent at Macedon Lodge under the Williamses.

“It’s really exciting for me to be taking my business back to Macedon Lodge,” he said. “Having all my horses at the one location, with all of the best facilities and all of my staff catered for, that’s really important to me. I’m especially looking forward to getting a young team of horses onto the facility.”

Howley said that while Macedon Lodge is renowned for the Cup horses it has conditioned so well, it was also the base for Bel Esprit when that horse, later a successful sire, won the G1 Blue Diamond S. for trainer-in-residence John Symons.

“A Blue Diamond winner has been trained from the property and I believe the facilities are as well-suited to training speed horses as they are stayers,” Howley said.

For Forsman, who has a different agenda as a New Zealand-based trainer, Macedon Lodge is perfect by way of location and opportunity.

“It’s ideal for me with the proximity to the airport and all major Victorian racetracks,” he said. “I went for an inspection with Bruce and the team in December, and the facility is really incredible. I think the structure at Macedon Lodge will suit for me to efficiently run my satellite stable and I look forward to spending time at the property.”

Forsman has had an enviable run in Australia of late, making it perfectly logical for the Cambridge trainer to set up stumps on this side of the Tasman.

He had seven winners during the spring carnival alone, including She’s Licketysplit (NZ) (Turn Me Loose {NZ}) in the G2 Edward Manifold S. and Mr Maestro (NZ) (Savabeel) in the G3 Caulfield Classic.

For Player, the opportunity is there for both Howley and Forsman to tailor their operations around Macedon Lodge’s unique offering.

“Andrew Forsman will be a satellite stable, so he’ll start off with only a small number of horses,” Player said. “For Liam, it’s a bit different because his whole team will be there. But he’s a very progressive guy. He’s got that great background of having done the Flying Start and having completed placements with different trainers around the world, and also having worked at the facility before.

“He brings a whole range of enthusiasm into it and I think he’s really looking forward to getting back into it, and back to where he trained the last two Group 1 winners for the property.”

Watch: Macedon Lodge - A New Chapter

Macedon Lodge will begin humming again on March 1. It’s a relief for the industry that it has been retained as a centre of training excellence and, in the words of Matt Tillett, with a healthy nod to its past.

“We want to respect the history of the property as Australia’s most successful private training centre,” he said. “We want to apply a new strategy that will welcome participation from the wider racing community.”