Dear members,
So there it is, my last official day at the NZTBA has come to an end.
The last three years have been an absolute pleasure, and it has been a genuine honour to have held this role.
The NZTBA has been around since 1948 and will be around for a long time yet. People like me come and go, so I won’t treat this as some sort of obituary for my time in the job! But reaching the end does give you a chance to stop and reflect.
I told the story in my very first update of my obsession with this sport. That started with my Grandad, a grassroots punter, not that great at punting and even worse at maths.
It was calculating how much he’d won, or probably more to the point how much he’d lost, as a young kid that sparked my love of the statistics, bloodlines and excitement of the sport.
My good friend Steve Davis once said this game is like a drug. Once it gets into your system, you can’t get it out. He’s right.
Owing to smooth hands and a severe allergy to too much mud, I decided pretty early that the hands on side of things wasn’t going to be my go. Instead, I had the ambition to become an administrator.
I thought getting some experience in the wider business world for a couple of years would be a good bet before bringing those skills back into racing.
That couple of years turned into a lengthy career, including 11 years in the UK.
It was from 11,000 miles away that I applied for this job. When I was successful, the reality quickly dawned that in three short months we had to pack up a decade’s worth of possessions, sell a house, move an 18 month old boy halfway around the world and come home.
When I landed back here, I really had no idea what the breadth of this job would be, or the satisfaction I would ultimately get from it.
I always say that someone like me has the luxury of turning the heat pump up a couple of notches when it gets cold, and that my biggest risk of injury is strained fingertips from too much time on the keyboard.
Representing the people who are out there working hard in rain or shine, or taking the financial risks that keep this sport alive, and making sure their views and interests are heard is, I think, what a job like this is about.
That has probably been my biggest motivation over the last three years. Because without those people doing what they do, I wouldn’t have the privilege of making a living from a sport I love.
And what a group of people and horses there are to represent in the New Zealand breeding industry.
Relative to the size of our foal crop and our industry, we are the best in the world at it. No doubt about that for me.
That didn’t happen by accident. It has been built over generations by outstanding horse people, and you only have to look at the horses we keep producing to see it.
Our history is remarkable, from Phar Lap through countless champions since, but the best thing is that this isn’t just a story from the past, because we are still doing it now.
New Zealand bred horses continue to perform right at the top level around the world, and buyers keep coming back here because they know what can come out of this country.
That is something we should be enormously proud of.
My arrival home coincided with the beginning of the Entain partnership with TAB NZ, which completely transformed the outlook for racing in this country.
Make no mistake, shortly before that the future was looking very bleak.
This last year has seen plenty of discussion around where we are going from here. Whatever has been said and done, I truly hope the necessary reform takes place to make the most of the opportunity we have been given.
That doesn’t mean tearing down the past or riding roughshod over the DNA of this sport. It means facing up to the realities of where we are in 2026, respecting what has gone before and building properly for what comes next.
You can do both. You can respect the past and prepare for the future.
And I believe that will happen. We have an incredible base to work from and, if we make the right decisions now, future generations can look back and be thankful for what was done in this period.
I’m proud of what has been achieved here over the past three years. There are so many different areas this Association gets involved in.
The one thing I do leave with a tinge of regret about is that some of the ideas we developed and put forward to tangibly help breeders, and ultimately help rebuild our foal crop, remain as proposals rather than reality.
If we are serious about shoring up the pipeline for the future, then investing in ways to support the production of our horses has to be fundamental to that.
Again, I believe sensible reform can free up the capital needed to invest in that area, and I’ll always be someone who is willing and able to help in that regard.
I want to thank the incredible team I have worked with over my time here.
Firstly, Corrina Holmes, who put her heart and soul into this Association for many years.
Corrina retired in March and, true to form, even then she didn’t really want to go because she was worried about letting people down. Despite her battles with health, she is now thankfully spending plenty of time travelling and enjoying herself.
Her loyalty to the Association was incredible, but more than that, her positive attitude through everything she has dealt with has been a real inspiration.
Adele McLeod brought real skill, enthusiasm and energy to the marketing and communications role during her time here. She is now enjoying life in South Korea with Kozzie Azano and their two young children, with Kozzie continuing to build his riding career there.
Lucy Monaghan stepped into Adele’s shoes and has done so brilliantly. She now carries a huge amount across our marketing and communications and just gets on with it, which is very much her style. I know she’ll continue to do a great job for the Association.
And I owe a huge thank you to President John Thompson, and to the rest of our Council, both past and present.
Your support, particularly when it has really been needed, has been a massive help to me over the past three years and something I’ve greatly appreciated.
I also want to thank all of our sponsors and partners who support the Association and the work we do. That support is hugely important and allows us to do far more for breeders than we otherwise could.
And finally, to our members, who are the lifeblood of this Association.
The conversations, phone calls, farm visits, events and catch ups around the country have been one of the very best parts of the job. I have met an enormous number of good people, made plenty of friends and learned a huge amount along the way.
I have always felt that I was given the freedom to have a view, advocate for the things I believed mattered and try to make a difference for breeders. I have never taken that opportunity for granted.
It was always a goal of mine to work in the thoroughbred industry. To have come home and spent three years representing New Zealand breeders has comfortably been the most enjoyable and rewarding period of my career.
While my time with the NZTBA ends here, I’m lucky that this isn’t goodbye to the industry, just a move to a different part of it.
More than anything, I’m just very grateful that I got the chance to do this.
To come home, work in the sport I’ve loved since I was a kid, represent people I have enormous respect for and make so many friends along the way has meant a huge amount to me.
Thank you for having me. I’ve loved it.
For the final time....Go the Kiwi Breds!
