 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2002
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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John Seaton loves the thrill of buying and selling. We are not just talking horses here either. In fact, they are one of the last commodities he lets go these days. John deals mainly in sheep and cattle; throw in some property and the various blocks of land that he has bought and then sub-divided over the years, and you will have almost every reason why John is one of the wealthiest men in the harness racing industry.
It all started quite humbly in the little town of Darfield, north of Christchurch, where John was born and raised on his family's 80 acre farm. John loved running and rugby as a youngster, but neither interest was greater than his dislike for school so he turned his back on education at the age of 15. He worked around home, picking potatoes and doing stock work for 12 months, and it was about this time when he had his first taste of dealing. "I bought and sold ponies," he recalled. "And I loved it. I was probably turning over about thirty to forty ponies a year, and making between fifteen and twenty pounds on each one." At 16 John landed a job driving trucks and trailers for Wilson's Motors in Halkett, carting stock, hay and grain to and from various properties around Canterbury. "We had brand new trucks to drive and I really enjoyed those days," he said. "I used to deliver grain to John Noble's where I also met Doug Mangos and Malcolm Shinn who I had been to school with, and at times I would stop and watch the horses working around the track."
Having caught the harness racing bug, John was just 18 when he first took himself along to the Yearling Sales at the Showgrounds, determined to go home with a horse. "I had mamaged to save a bit of money at that stage, so I bought a little Armbro Del colt called Delbrae for five hundred pounds. I was only earning about twenty pounds a week in those days, so it was a lot of money to spend. "I was still there when a guy called Charlie Winter came up to me later in the day and asked to buy Delbrae off me, but I told him he wasn't for sale. Charlie had missed the Sales and was really keen on the colt, he offered me twice as much as I had paid for him. I couldn't turn that down."
John quickly cottoned-on that there was money to be made here. The following year he went back to the Sales and bought himself two more, both of which he on-sold within a month and made nearly a four-figure profit on each, and then 12 months later he was back to put his finger up again, this time to secure Command Castle who later gave him his first win as an owner when successful at Oamaru. Command Castle was later sold overseas for a five-figure sum.
John married Ann at the age of 26, bought the family farm off his parents the same year and left the transport business to grow crops. Not long after he sold that to buy a 900 acre on in Aylesbury, and he went into raising sheep and cattle on a large scale. "It just got bigger and bigger," John said. "We were turning over anything up to 400,000 sheep a year; those were the good days back then - and they still are. These days I will be at the sales two or three days a week, and it's great because I have made a lot of friends. The good thing about this sort of stock is that you can buy them one day, and sell them the next. I have been doing it for thirty years and I love the thrill of it; I love dealing," he reiterated.
As far as the racehorses were concerned, John kept trying to find one that would win him an event worth over $10,000. When Il Vicolo came along, he never looked back. "The return is a lot different with horses," he said. "I mean, you could buy twelve at the Sales and never hear of six of them. I have really enjoyed racing horses with the likes of Colin and Mike (De Filippi), Tony (Herlihy) and Mark (Purdon). They are what has made my racing days really terrific for me."
John's name has become synonymous with the rich Yearling Sales Series Finals in recent years, having won 2-year-old editions with Il Vicolo, Jack Cade and Light And Sound, and 3-year-old editions with Il Vicolo, Falcon's Blue Jean, Perfect Seelster and Jack Cade. And that is not to mention his growing list of successes in the Sires' Stakes Series and other major age group races. The run continued at Addington when the brilliant Light And Sound ended his season with his eighth consecutive victory, taking out the Garrard's Sires' Stakes 2-Year-old Final in devastating fashion.
All these successes don't come without a price though. "We will start looking at colts six weeks before the Sales. And if there is two hundred and fifty in, we would see more than two hundred of them ourselves. It's quite tiring, but you have to do your homework. I am really lucky having Mark because not only does he put the work in, he is also such a good judge. It's so good to have a trainer that can make 2-year-olds."
People might think that John Seaston can go to the Sales and buy himself anything he wants, but that is not the case. Even he is a realist. "Some of them are too dear, even for me. In the days when you paid $25,000 for a horse, that was a good investment.these days, if you pay $70,000 to $100,000 for one, you might not get out of it. I have probably bought about ten at each of the last two sales, and that is too many. I would like to buy more, but you can't keep them all."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 15May02