When Johnny McKeever arrived in Australia in January ahead of the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, he certainly wasn’t expecting to spend the entire year here.
But that is the way it has worked out for the English bloodstock agent with travel restrictions preventing him and his wife Susie from travelling home and thus the pair have spent a year-long working holiday Down Under.
McKeever said that spending extra time in Australia allowed him to do and experience things that he never would have in a normal year.
“We’ve been stuck in Australia so I’ve been trying to make the most of it and learn as much as I can while I’m here,” he told TDN AusNZ.
“It wasn’t so bad because we were able to make acquaintances with people that we probably didn’t ever get to meet for more than a few minutes like we would normally do at the sales, so we’ve basically just settled into a Sydney lifestyle.
"We were able to make acquaintances with people that we probably didn’t ever get to meet for more than a few minutes like we would normally do at the sales." - Johnny McKeever
“We obviously couldn’t travel that much, although I did get up to the mares sale on the Gold Coast, and I’ve been up and down from the Hunter Valley quite a lot and inspected mares and foals and got involved with the foal and broodmare sales.
“That was the sort of thing that I wouldn’t have normally done because I wouldn’t have been around. So it’s just turned into a learning trip, which has been great.”
Johnny and Susie McKeever with James Ferguson
New experiences
One new experience for McKeever this year was attending his first Southern Hemisphere breeze-up sale at the Inglis Ready2Race Sale in October, where he was able to be on the ground for the successful sale of a couple of pinhook purchases.
“We had a couple of successful pinhooks there and I knew when I was buying one of them that it was going to be pinhooked at that sale, which was the Deep Field colt, and the other one I didn’t realise until we bought him that he was going to a ready to run sale and that was the Pride Of Dubai,” he said.
“But that was interesting to see. Obviously we’ve had breeze-up sales for a bit longer in Europe but they’re taking off here but it was an interesting dynamic.
“It was slightly different in that we have more local buyers whereas yours tend to be centered around the Asian market.
“Annabel Neasham was telling me the other day that she bought one and three days later she had it galloping, so it’s a different experience than buying a yearling and breaking it in and pre-training it etc before it gets to the trainer.
“So I think they definitely have their place, I’m still definitely more of a yearling fan than buying a 2-year-old in training fan, but it’s a useful tool for the in industry.”
On the road
Now McKeever is beginning to travel around to Australian farms to complete early yearling inspections and started with a road trip to South Australia to visit Cornerstone and Mill Park.
“We’ve been great friends with Sam Hayes for a long time and we’ve done quite a lot of mutual work in getting mares and stallions and so forth, so we decided that when the borders were open that we’d go an do a bit of a trip from New South Wales to South Australia by car, just to learn a bit more about Australia,” McKeever said.
“We went to places like Broken Hill and things like that and then we ended up going to stay with Sam at Cornerstone, and then we had a day with the Watsons at Mill Park.
“They have a fantastic bunch of yearlings which we were privileged to see, and I think we were the first people to be shown them so that was really kind of the Watsons.”
Johnny and Oliver McKeever inspecting yearlings at Inglis Riverside | Image courtesy of Inglis
Farm inspections are another thing McKeever wouldn’t normally be able to do if not for his longer than intended stay in Australia but he said it’s a great opportunity for him to take his time in looking at all the yearlings, rather than cramming them all in a couple of days out from the beginning of the Sale.
“I bought 30 yearlings in Australia last year in conjunction with a few different agents and some Asian-based clients and local clients as well,” he said. “So as I’m getting a little bit more involved in the market here, it’ll be really nice to do the job a bit more professionally so to speak, than landing from Europe on January 3 and then have to work really long and exhausting days just to try and get through all the horses.
“I’m the type of guy that likes to see everything, I don’t handpick pedigrees beforehand because in general, my budget is not that big. So I like to actually try and see every horse so that I can pick a few out that are obviously not going to be the top lots but I like them which is kind of how we got Finance Tycoon, who won the Maribyrnong Plate, and he only cost $150,000.
“I’m the type of guy that likes to see everything, I don’t handpick pedigrees beforehand because in general, my budget is not that big. So I like to actually try and see every horse." - Johnny McKeever
“So that’s my typical market at the Gold Coast so you have to look at all the horses, but it’s great having the extra time to go around and look at them but they do change a lot.
“You can see them six weeks to a month before the Sale, they’ll change a lot but it certainly helps me to eliminate some that I’m not that wild about.”
Experiencing Australian racing
The overall year of experiencing Australian racing from within the country is completely different compared to observing from overseas and despite being well into his tenure as a bloodstock agent, McKeever said he has learnt so much about the industry this year.
“From a learning perspective, even though I’ve been an agent for 32 years now, to go to a country and do a whole year’s cycle in it, it puts so many more things into place for you,” he said.
“For instance, the race program here. It really helps explain how each carnival comes after the other and how they all fit in the pattern of the racing, which you don’t get when you’re just reading results at home.
“Just to complete a whole year from a sales perspective, and not just yearling sales, and from a racing respective to see how the year ebbs and flows, that has all been made much more clear to me by living through it, even if it is in a COVID-19 year.”
While he has taken so many positives from the time in Australia, in contrast, McKeever has also missed the entire sales season in Europe.
With the help of bloodstock agents on the ground, he has been able to make some purchases but he said he has found it difficult to buy without being able to see the stock himself.
With the help of bloodstock agents on the ground McKeever has been able to make some purchases | Image courtesy of Tattersalls
“I’ve got a good working relationship with a few different agents in Europe so I’ve been able to participate in guiding people via them into some purchases, but basically I have lost the sales season in Europe,” he said.
“When you’re not there on the ground, there’s not much you can do about that so I’ve had to put that down as a year of experience and missing out and now I kind of know what it feels like to be an Australian trying to buy at these sales.
“At the moment I’m working my way through the mares for a couple of mare clients that we’ve got and you get the feeling of what it’s like to be doing it blind from their perspective, whereas normally I would be the guy on the other end inspecting them there for my clients.
“With the young stock, it’s been impossible. I used to buy quite a lot of foals in Europe and I can’t do any of that because that’s 100 per cent you’ve got to be there and yearlings are pretty much the same, although you can go a little bit further then on videos.
“But with broodmares and horses in training, we have been participating. Unfortunately for horses in training, it was so strong that we weren’t able to get much bought.
“It’s been an amazing year with how well the market has held up. Here I can understand why it’s held up, but in Europe, it’s been quite staggering how well it has held up.”
“It’s been an amazing year with how well the market has held up. Here I can understand why it’s held up, but in Europe, it’s been quite staggering how well it has held up.” - Johnny McKeever
McKeever now has his sights on completing the rest of the yearling inspections around the Hunter Valley while also following the upcoming breeding stock sales in Europe, starting with the Tattersalls December Mares Sale in Newmarket next week.
“From Sunday next week we’re doing four days in the Hunter Valley with 500-plus inspections around all the major farms there,” he said. “And then we’re going to go through the Southern Highlands. We’ll obviously be following the December sales in Newmarket with the broodmares and then the Goffs Sales as well.
“I never have a boring day, but I definitely have more time on my hands than I would ever have in England. I’ve got lots of friends in Sydney so I’m never short of mates to meet for a drink in the pub.”
