Behind the scenes breeders: Julia Ritchie

Cover image courtesy of Sportpix

As a daughter of women’s shoe magnate Bill Ritchie, it is only fitting that Julia Ritchie counts the coveted Golden Slipper among the plethora of major race wins she has enjoyed as an owner-breeder.

A film producer by trade, perhaps only the big screen could do Ritchie and her father’s long-standing involvement in racing and breeding justice, for it’s an involvement which traces back as far as Ritchie can remember.

To that end, some of Ritchie’s earliest memories were made on the family’s Bangaloe Stud, the property on which her love of the thoroughbred was ignited and which may never have come to be in her father’s possession had it not been for legendary trainer Tommy Smith.

“My father and Tommy Smith became very good friends in the early 50s and dad was one of Tommy’s clients,” Ritchie recalled.

“Around 1960 Tommy convinced my dad to buy a horse farm on the Central Coast, which became Bangaloe Stud. The farm had previously been an orchard and we converted it into a breeding establishment, where from about the mid 60’s onward we always ended up with about 12 or 13 yearlings each year and about 20-24 broodmares.

“Dad had us working up there all the time. I remember my sister was still in a bassinet when we’d go up there and we’d just leave her in a tree trunk sometimes.

“I was at school and at uni, but I would go there over the holidays to ride horses, help prep the yearlings and then work down at the horse sales, so I was pretty hands-on. That’s where it all started for me, up there.”

By her own admission, Ritchie learnt a great deal about the intricacies of breeding racehorses from her father, particularly where commerciality was concerned, but not before she was given a thorough grounding in how to look after and care for thoroughbreds.

“It was basic stuff to start off with, basic animal handling and care,” she said of her introduction to the breeding world. “We were very fortunate to have one of the best horsemen around to teach us about that stuff - his name was Bob Lund.

“It was more about the quality of care that you give an animal, getting to see it thrive before it heads off to a sale.

“From there, when I worked at the sales I would discuss with Dad about why horses sold for certain amounts. In fact, we used to do a competition where we’d sit and mark in our catalogues what we thought each horse would bring, then we’d have a talk at the end of the day and go ‘well I thought it would make $180,000, why did it only bring $70,000?’.

“So I was starting to learn the commercial aspects of what our choices were too, I just didn’t know it at the time.”

Both sides of the coin

Thanks in large part to the countless hours spent at the sales during her teenage years, Ritchie certainly knows a thing or two about the commercial facets of breeding racehorses, though she has also enjoyed plenty of success when breeding to race.

Look no further than Outback Prince (Desert Prince {Ire}) and Hotel Grand (Grand Lodge {USA}), both of whom tasted success at the highest level and both of whom were bred and raced by Bangaloe Stud in conjunction with Ritchie’s long-term friend Hal Dyball.

Breeding to race and breeding commercially are often viewed as two very different propositions, but Ritchie’s years of experience in the industry has led her to believe that the relationship between the two is far closer than it seems.

“Part of my rationale, and it has worked to a point, is that if you breed and keep one or two of your own because you want to make the family successful, then often you’ve got a commercial aspect to what you sell after it,” she said.

“One of our geldings, Fiveandahalfstar, who went on to win two Group 1s in the BMW and the VRC Derby, suddenly all his sisters became very commercial. We had kept him as a homebred and that rationale can help too because you can control the outcome as much as you can control the outcome of any horse, which is very often not the case.

“It’s also about breeding horses within a commercial range, because we can’t all breed horses that are going to bring a million dollars. It’s breeding a horse that you know has enough wherewithal to be commercial.

“Making money if you can is always a good thing, but it’s about trying to make commercial decisions that will contribute good horses to the industry.”

That ethos is precisely the reason why Ritchie is in such regular contact with her team of trainers, which includes the likes of Chris Waller, Anthony Cummings and the Gai Waterhouse-Adrian Bott partnership.

The ultimate goal for any breeder is to breed an elite racehorse after all, regardless of whether it is sold at auction or kept to race, and Ritchie believes that using trainers as a sounding board gives her an edge when it comes to producing future stars of the track.

“At the end of the day, owners and trainers are the end users of the horses, so if you can try and get a better understanding of what works out there, then it does help you make better choices as a breeder,” she said.

“I actually have a lot of conversations with my trainers and I’ll often talk to them about what they have in their stable, a certain breeding combination or stallion line, and they’ll say ‘Oh they’re not 2-year-olds, they’re 3-year-olds’, or ‘They’re a bit soft and it needs more leg’ or whatever.

“I work with one or two trainers in particular on an annual basis about my choices of who I send my mares to, considering what sale they think a certain mating would work out for as well.

“From there you can also work out your budget of how you run your business, because you know the sort of bandwidth that you're operating in.”

With the official start of the Southern Hemisphere breeding season a matter of days away, breeders across Australasia are brimming with excitement as they examine the latest crop of freshman stallions and rubber stamp their mating plans for the months ahead.

Ritchie is no exception, and when asked about what she loves most about breeding racehorses, it is abundantly clear that deciding on matings is right up there.

“I can’t say it’s the emotional rollercoaster,” she quipped, before continuing: “I love seeing if the choices you make 12 months before result in a foal that actually meets those expectations.

“You sit down 12 months before and go ‘well I’m going to send this mare to Justify or to Home Affairs, Written By, whoever’, but then to see that animal on the ground and see if your choices with that mare and stallion have worked to create a better progeny, that’s definitely a huge part of it, especially today where it’s so competitive and we have so many choices of stallions out there.

“To then watch them go forward, being weaned, becoming yearlings and then following them as racehorses as well - it’s very rewarding.”

A love of the horse

With Bangaloe Stud no longer in the family’s ownership, the majority of Ritchie’s broodmare band reside at The Oaks - her pre-training, education, rehabilitation and agistment farm located near Camden in Sydney's southwest.

The mares are sent up to the Hunter Valley each year to be covered and are brought back to The Oaks once they are in foal, while some additional mares whom Ritchie co-owns with Coolmore remain on its Jerrys Plains property all year round.

There is of course a commercial aspect to Ritchie’s breeding operation, but there are times when that commercial aspect has to play second fiddle to something of far greater importance.

Ritchie’s love of the horse is unequivocal, and she can recall countless anecdotes from her time in the industry which shine a light on the extraordinary bond between people and their horses.

“All breeders are genuine horse lovers,” she said. “They can have a commercial side to it, but they really do care about what they breed.

“Years ago we were selling one of the yearlings at Inglis Easter and it had been my sister’s favourite foal of the year. The foal would literally lie down in her lap and every time she was in the paddock the foal followed her everywhere. They were so close.

“When we went to the sale my sister would not stop crying, so my father went and bought her back to stop my sister crying. Having the horses at home, you do develop that sort of relationship with them every year.

“It’s the same if you’ve got a horse that you know you can’t sell, say for injury reasons, you actually take on the responsibility of caring for it. I’ve got one at the moment who had a very shaky start as a foal, but because we took time and energy with her, she’s now a totally different horse.”

The foal in question was born with severe radial nerve damage and was unable to walk, to the extent where she had to be picked up and carried over to her mother in her formative weeks.

Half a year down the track, and with the help of a little ingenuity and perseverance, her story has thankfully taken a much more positive turn.

“The vets at the stud sat down and we said, ‘To be honest, we don’t know about her quality of life, this may be it’, but they all came up with this great idea on how to support the horse to recovery - they built a mechanism, basically like calipers for the horse’s leg, so it could stand up,” Ritchie revealed.

“Now, six-eight months later, the foal is running around the paddock with nothing on her leg. We don’t know if she’ll be a racehorse, but I don’t care if she’s not, she’ll have a great home with us on our farm.

“But at the moment she’s showing that she can run on it, so we’re going to take our time with her. Horses are bred to run, so if she wants to run, then we’ll encourage her.

“Horse welfare has been paramount to me forever. At all times if there is a quality of life to be had by an animal, then you will do whatever you can humanly do.”

Alongside her career in the film industry, Ritchie has also devoted much of her time to helping improve the racing and breeding industries through spells on various industry boards.

She was the first female board member on the Australian Jockey Club Committee and has also worked on the committee at the NSW Racehorse Owners Association, while her tenure as Vice Chair of the Australian Turf Club came to an end at the end of last year.

Ritchie’s focus has now turned to educating those outside of the industry in her role as Vice Chairperson of Kick-Up, an organisation whose mission is to create a positive paradigm shift in the public perception of thoroughbred horse racing.

“As an industry I think we have to encourage more people to learn more things about how our industry works, so that people actually understand how a horse is cared for,” she said.

“It isn’t just about the upper echelon of animal and we as an industry are accountable for all of our horses. Like anything, we can do better - there’s no question about that.

“I’m now involved in Kick Up and part of that mandate will be providing clear, collaborative information about how our industry does care for its horses. There are a few naysayers out there, and in the absence of the truth, somebody will always make something up, but if people are better informed they’ll make better choices.

“If we can move the dial of opinion by at least two points, then I think we’re achieving great things.”

Flame still burns

Although Ritchie’s love for all horses is plain to see, everyone has their favourites, and there are certain horses over the years that have found themselves a forever home in Ritchie’s heart.

To her mind, dual Group 1 winner Fiveandahalfstar (Hotel Grand) is the best she has bred and G1 Golden Slipper hero Vancouver is the best she has bought, while Vancouver’s former barnmate at Coolmore, So You Think (NZ), is, to quote, “one of the sexiest stallions I have ever seen in my entire life”.

Then there’s the loss of Bangaloe’s blue-hen mare Terrestrial (Star Watch), who left a pair of Group 1-winning siblings back to back and was named Thoroughbred Breeders NSW Broodmare of the Year a matter of days away from her untimely passing.

Turning her attention to the future, Ritchie is bullish about the broodmare prospects of Not A Single Doubt’s Group 1 stalwarts Shout The Bar and Champagne Cuddles, both of whom she holds an interest in, while last season’s progressive G1 Champagne S. placegetter Townsend (Dundeel {NZ}) was singled out as a young horse of great promise.

There is plenty there to keep the flame burning as brightly as ever, and Ritchie’s involvement in the racing and breeding industries shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

“The day you stop learning about horses is the day you get out,” she said.

“I have a pre-training and agistment business and I have an incredibly good team of people there who run it. Every day I’m around them they help me look at horses with new eyes, to see different things and do things better than how I was doing them - to the point where I don’t even muck out a box anymore because I’d be yelled at for not doing it the right way!

“It’s the same at the sales. I would always look at horses from a breeder’s eye, where all your geese are swans, but I often go to the sales with different trainers to see it from a trainer’s perspective and learn what they look for in a racehorse or yearling.

“There’s a group of five of us who keep buying horses together and with that group we’ve got a few running around who we hope will have their hoof on the till this season. Any success with a racehorse keeps you ticking over to the next time, or to the next race meeting at least.”

As well as a talented team of horses to look forward to this season, Ritchie is also counting down the days until September 16 at Royal Randwick, where the G3 Bill Ritchie H. - one of the traditional lead-ups for the G1 Epsom H. - will be among the feature races on the card.

Such was the indelible mark left on the industry by Ritchie’s late father Bill, a Group 3 race was named in his honour in 1994. It continues to be a great source of pride for the Ritchie family to this day, with each of the last four winners going on to win at least once at Group 1 level subsequently.

“It gives my family, my sister and her son, as well as other people who have been associated with my father over the years, an opportunity to come to the races and remember him with great fondness and a vast respect,” Ritchie said.

“The thing I love about it is that the race is a good stepping stone for a lot of horses that go onto great success - a lot of horses have gone on to win Group 1s after winning that race.

“I sort of think that’s what dad was all about - lifting someone up for them to thrive - and that’s what the race has turned out to be.”

Ritchie has undoubtedly inherited her father’s passion for racing and breeding, and much to the delight of many in the industry, it looks as though the family name will continue to be associated with Group 1 races for several years to come.

Another Golden Slipper would perhaps be the most fitting of them all.