Thoroughbreds dominated Dean Hawthorne’s life from an early age and his subsequent multi-faceted involvement had him expertly placed to make his mark as a respected bloodstock agent.
From working with stallions, pre-training and breaking-in to sales preparations, he had put together a deep and varied CV before launching Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock.
His background also includes an international three-day eventing career that earned him New Zealand representation.
Horses were in Hawthorne’s blood as father Norm operated Paramount Stud, home to leading Group 1 stallions In The Purple and Diplomatic Agent among others.
“Paramount was in its heyday in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was brought up there in Hastings and went to Rathkeale College in Masterton,” he said.
“When I left school, I wasn’t clever enough to do the university thing, so I went to the freezing works for a while and rode showjumpers and worked on the farm.
“I was going pretty well eventing and went and worked for Mark Todd in England in 1987 and during that time Paramount got caught up in the share market crash.”
That outside force resulted in Hawthorne returning to New Zealand.
“We had to sell the farm and most of the stock and relocated to Cambridge and my brother and I leased Middle Park Stud,” he said.
“We formed a company and got hold of a couple of stallions to lease, Half Iced was one, and then Patrick Hogan bought Middle Park.
“We moved to Fieldhouse Stud and leased that for about five years before I went out on my own and got a contract to break in horses for Peter Keating and Ra Ora Stud, about 30 of them.
“I got some cash together and leased a breaking and pre-trained operation off Cherry Taylor back in the early 1990s.
“I did that for about 15 years and bought another farm at Matangi, which we used as a spelling block, and was riding eventers at the same time and made the Olympic squad for Barcelona.”
While that sadly didn’t eventuate, Hawthorne’s business did take off.
“The horse did a tendon, so I didn’t get on the plane in the end and carried on breaking in horses and we got to probably be the biggest breaker in the country for years,” he said.
“We helped pioneer the modern day Ready to Run Sale, there were probably five of us at that time and I did the breeze-ups from the early 1990s through to about four or five years ago.”
Hawthorne traded as Anzac Lodge, a Waikato property purchased through the success of his two-year-old sale involvement and led to another major event in his career.
“That’s how I sold Show No Emotion to Jonathan Munz, I had bought him for $10,000 and sold him for good money and he ended up winning the Ascot Vale, which is now the Coolmore,” he said.
Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock was subsequently launched and continued his successful association with Munz’s GSA Bloodstock, which has its headquarters at Pinecliff on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
“I have been managing his portfolio for 20 years now, the bloodstock side of the business got that big and fortunately Sam Beatson, who does a great job, came along and sent all the breaking side of the business to him.
“I have three major jobs now, Jonathan has about 100 mares so that’s full on and manage that side of it and do all the sale work for him.
“Lindsay Park is probably my next biggest client and do all the yearling sale and two-year-old sale work for them and I’m also the New Zealand representative for William Inglis and I’ve probably looked at 450 yearlings this year to go to Australia.”
Q & A
Do you remember the first horse you bought?
“It was a funny story, I sold a showjumper to Japan in the mid-90s and I had three rides at the one-day event championship at Pukekohe and I fell off all of them. There was no showjumping the next day, so I went to the weanling sale and bought a Success Express colt for $5000 and took him to the yearling sale and he made $55,000.”
Do you have any sale day superstitions?
“No, I’m not superstitious at all.”
Best horse(s) you’ve ever bought or being associated with?
“I purchased Super Seth (A280,000) for Jonathan and he won the Caulfield Guineas and Little Brose (A$200,000) who won a Blue Diamond for the Hayes boys.”
Best value for money purchase(s)?
“I bought a broodmare for Jonathan called Purely Spectacular for A$300,000 carrying a sister to Stratum Star, who had already won a Group 1, and we sold about A$4 million worth of horses out of her. I also bought Derryn for A$110,000 and he won A$800,000 and turned out to be a very handy stallion.”
Do you have a favourite nick/cross when sourcing yearlings?
“They come and go, you’ve got Zoustar/Snitzel and Zoustar/Fastnet Rock, but I’ve always been internationally partial to Dubawi over Sadlers Wells blood.”
Favourite current sire and of yesteryear?
“Super Seth has to be the favourite at the moment and In The Purple stood at Paramount. He was a great sire of stayers and always had runners in the big Cups in Australia, he was good to our family.”
Most memorable day at the races?
“When Super Seth won the Caulfield Guineas and we had Groundswell who was third and Southbank just got beaten in the Thousand Guineas.”
