Musk Creek moving with the times

Images courtesy of Musk Creek Farm

David Kobritz sniffed the wind, a little uneasily.

Australian breeding had barged into a new and exciting era, and one of the country’s most respected boutique farms, Musk Creek Farm, was looking like missing the boat.

As a surname such as his in the 1970s might suggest, Kobritz came to thoroughbreds unexpectedly. His parents came from Russia, via China, where they were traders in commodities such as leather, before moving to Australia after Mao Zedong’s Communists seized control post-WWII.

Their son studied urban planning at Melbourne University, an endeavour that would turn him into a very successful businessman, with around 70 housing projects borne of his company now dotted around Melbourne.

Kobritz’s studies also flipped him into the unknown world of horse racing – thanks to a uni mate with a VRC committeeman father, who introduced him to ownership – and this happened with an almost blessed run of success.

Blessed run of success

The first horse he bought into turned out to be Diamond Park (Diamond Joe {GB}). Trained by Tommy Hughes Snr, the mare’s win in Flemington’s Bagot H. in 1980, and her subsequent favouritism for The Metropolitan, had Kobritz entertaining Melbourne Cup dreams.

Those didn’t come to fruition, but before too much longer Kobritz was one of four part-owners of Subzero, who won the Cup in 1992, then became a folk hero in performing duties for charity into his very old age.

Kobritz, and his three Subzero partners, had the chance to buy a half-brother to “Subbie” two months after his wet Flemington triumph, but instead bought into a member of Danehill’s first Australian crop. Named Danzero, he won the Golden Slipper, and unfurled a superb stud career, with Kobritz still along for the ride.

The idea of breeding his own horses followed, with sufficient success leading to the transformation of an old cattle property on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula into Musk Creek Farm. With Rock Kingdom (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) the poster boy, winning the 2009 G1 Epsom H., Kobritz’s broodmare band grew to number 35.

Around this time Kobritz bought a weanling colt by Lonhro for $115,000 (US$77,000), merely in order to correct the gender balance of his draft for the Magic Millions yearling sale. There, he sold him for twice his weanling price to “the only prospective buyer who didn’t see him only as a potentially good 3-year-old”. The buyer was Gai Waterhouse, the colt became Pierro, he won the Golden Slipper, four other Group 1s, and has of course become a siring powerhouse.

Overall, it was all seeming remarkably easy for Kobritz. But in more recent years, as a fundamental shift has swept into Australian breeding, he knew it was time for a major change of his own.

Time for change

While Australian bloodlines had perhaps lacked some of the class of older European lines, the rise of international players in the market here, and the involvement of top-notch shuttle stallions, has boosted the quality in this country. Given the horses represented at sales, and some of the buyers, a few years ago Kobritz hit reboot.

“Starting out, I thought it was a numbers game really, so it was more quantity rather than quality,” says the Moonee Valley committeeman and property developer. “You learn from experience that quantity doesn’t work.

“Under the guidance of Craig Rounsefell from Boomer Bloodstock we have tried to buy better quality mares, and race better quality fillies, and build up the farm from there. But even now, in the last couple of years, we’ve gone through all our mares and sold more than 50 per cent of them.

“It’s because the yearling market has become quite polarised. The top 25 per cent is very strong, and then it falls away pretty quickly thereafter.

“Like a lot of things in business, the world’s becoming a much smaller place, and the Australian market has improved so much in terms of quality and bloodlines, that it’s part of an international marketplace.

“Each year we’re getting increased numbers of international buyers. They’re competing with one another at the top end of the Australian market. Some form partnerships to buy at that upper end. The downside is that lower-middle market has really struggled.”

If most of a breeder’s mares are in the 75 per cent, he says, “it’s really costing you money. It’s not a question of how much you can make, but how much you’re going to lose”. Thus, Musk Creek has sold some 19 mares in the past couple of years.

There have been other effects, the 67-year-old says. Just as multi-tasking has become the norm in workplaces previously populated by specialists, breeders and trainers not at the main table have had to be more canny.

“The upper-end buyers tend to go to the upper-end trainers, who seem more dominant than ever,” he says. “The mid-ranking trainers might be finding it harder to find clients. And so those trainers can’t just be trainers any more. They’re marketers, they’re communicators. It’s a real all-round business, and it’s highly competitive.”

Selecting broodmares

To strike out towards that top end of the market, Kobritz has bought four carefully selected, upper end broodmares in the past two years.

At last year’s Magic Millions Broodmare sale, Kobritz paid $600,000 (US$414,000) for Deipara (Lonhro), a daughter of Group 1-winning mare Divine Madonna, in foal to Exceed And Excel. The filly foal will likely turn heads at next month’s Magic Millions sale. Deipara has her second foal on the ground, by I Am Invincible, and recently returned to Exceed And Excel.

At the same sale this year Kobritz stumped up $525,000 (US$362,000) for Personalised (Snitzel), who has now delivered her first foal, a colt by Spirit Of Boom. Musk Creek saw a perfect next fit for Personalised when buying a nomination for Dundeel (NZ) at a charity auction for stricken jockey Tye Angland.

Kobritz also paid $130,000 (US$88,000) at last year’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale for Leny’s Here (Husson {Arg}), an unraced daughter of Group 1-winning mare Devil Moon who was in foal to More Than Ready (USA) (the filly foal goes to next year’s Melbourne Premier sale), and who has this season dropped a Sebring filly.

And at the same sale this year, he outlayed $500,000 (US$342,000) for stakes-placed American Apologynotaccepted (USA) (Fusaichi Pegasus {USA}) in foal to Medaglia d’Oro (USA). Her filly is now on the ground.

The reduction in Musk Creek’s broodmare numbers means a lower-than-usual offerings at yearling sales for the next couple of years. Seven will go to the Magic Millions, headed by Deipara’s daughter, and an imposing colt by the ill-fated Hinchinbrook out of If I Can I Can (NZ). A further six will bear the “K” brand at the Melbourne Premier, including a three-quarter brother, by Reliable Man (GB), to VRC Oaks winner Miami Bound.

“You’ve got to have quality mares, both physically and pedigree wise, and you’ve got to breed to proven stallions,” Kobritz says. “Occasionally you’ll take a punt on a new stallion because service fees are so high, but if you don’t breed to proven stallions, you’re not going to get in the game at yearling sale time.

“If you breed to race, you can take more risks, but if you breed to sell you’ve got to breed to the top.”

Overseeing the major renovation of Moonee Valley, still running his ever-busy property company Dealcorp, and with a “great team of staff” running things at the 135-acre Musk Creek Farm, Kobritz seems exceptionally well positioned to move into the next phase of his breeding career.

He has ownership in around 30 racehorses, and hopes his long association with Waterhouse could bear more fruit through Japanese imports Wolfe (Jpn) (Novellist {Ire}), and Hush Writer (Jpn) (Rulership {Jpn}), who he feels, despite their Australian successes, are six to 12 months off peaking.

There are, however, other changes he’d like to see, and it might surprise some fellow Victorians.

“The way the overall industry operates in New South Wales, the way the racing media recognises the importance of the breeding industry to the economy far more than they do in Victoria, is just terrific,” he says.

“In the NSW media, there’s far more recognition of the breeders, more discussion about pedigrees of horses. In Victoria our media seems concentrated on wagering. The breeder hardly gets a mention, so one of the most important segments of the industry is completely ignored.

“What Racing NSW has done to innovate is fantastic. Good on them, though I do wish there was more cooperation to make racing more successful on a national scale, rather than just on a state scale.

“We’ve got to change to appeal to that younger audience. We’ve got to protect our traditions, but the industry has also got to move with the times.”

Which seems to sum up Musk Creek to a tee.