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ABERCROMBIE (1975)

Silent Majority-Bergdorf-Duane Hanover

Male Descendants include Artsplace- Art Major- Sweet Lou- Sportswriter etc

You would not have thought a $US9,500 yearling originally broken in by a bus driver would have a lasting influence but Abercrombie was to become the Adios lines best chance of survival.

He certainly wasn't a cotton wool champion, having 20 starts at two (just seven wins) and 33 starts at three, winning 22. He set a world record at the Meadowlands of 1:53 and a one season stakes earning record ensured he was the Horse of the Year before being syndicated for $US3m. He died in 1975.

Abercrombie became the leading sire for several years and the leading broodmare sire for the first time in 2005. He sired Artsplace, sire of Art Major, Life Sign and Armbro Emerson, a Canadian Hall of Famer who just happens to be the damsire of Bettor's Delight.

Artsplace was brilliant at three but his owner-breeders decided to try him again at four. He won 16 of 16. He died unexpectedly from faster than usual effects of laminitis when 18 with several stud seasons left in him. The Adios sire line had a history of laminitis spoiling the breeding party. Mach Three was from an Abercrombie mare.

You wouldn't say the Abercrombie/ Adios line is exactly blooming - but it is hanging in there.

TRIVIA FACT - Abercrombie was not the only bargain in his family. His sire Silent Majority only made $9000 as a yearling when selected by Roger White, a young Canadian who died in an air crash the following year on his way to another sale.

Silent Majority was by Henry T Adios whose famous driver Del Insko marked him highly for his "speed out of the gate and speed to put them away." He was tough too and according to Del never had a needle while in a racing campaign. His other sons though, including the ones who came to NZ, didn't cut it.

Credit: David McCarthy writing in Harnessed April 2017

INTERVIEW WITH BOB McARDLE

It was nearly 40 years ago when you and Wayne Francis started Nevele R. Where do you see the stud in, say, 10 years time?
It won't be there.

Are the days of big stud farms fading in favour of stallion station type operations?
Advances in genetic techniques and the shuttle stallions have changed it. But the full stud operation still has a lot to offer if it stays at the top of its game especially in the fertility area. When you have sharebrokers, bankers and lawyers handling off-site semen in their back yard you are going to have lower fertility.

What would your late patner Wayne Francis have thought of the present stud scene?
He would be ecstatic. Many of the best stallions in the world available to breeders here was his dream. He died in 1998 and I remember telling him not long before the end we might be able to get (AI) straws for Life Sign and Abercrombie. He just said, "Wouldn't that be something" - and look at it now.

But those advances have come at a cost to breeders and the industry?
A lot of money is going out of the country and American studs now dominate our industry. Some years ago when I was at Nevele R I worked hard to combine four of the leading breeding establishments in Australasia into a syndicate. My idea was to buy the leading US 3-year-old every second year so we could be the masters of our own destiny. We could each have had 50 services and 50 more for Australia, shuttled to America and the profits would be retained here.

What happened?
One horse I had in mind was Badlands Hanover and I went to America to do a deal. While I was there I found two of the four proposed syndicate members had made individual approaches to the owners to buy the horse themselves. So I thought "stuff that" and bought the rights for Nevele R there and then. I thought we missed a great opportunity not doing something like that. Now Blue Chip Farms in the States is sponsoring the Breeders Crown in Australia.

How did you set stallion fees in Nevele R's heyday and what do you think of fees now generally?
Breeders are hving a really tough time. If you are in the $5-10,000 range of fees to get commercial stock you need a $30,000 sale to break even. That is around the average. The delay in paying fees which has come in now is some help but you still have to pay. Breeders are dreamers and always have been. By the time you take a horse to the sales from a first season mare you are probably up for three service fees and without knowing how any of them might sell plus the risks involved. Wayne and I used to set fees by asking each other what we would be prepared to pay for a horse of the quality in question and go from there.

Through Bromac Lodge you are also in the dreamer category?
To some extent yes. But I am breeding 25 mares this year - I own 60 but have leased 35 out - and every one will be bred so that I have a sale market even if selling a filly. Actually we have probably done best with fillies recently but naturally we keep one filly from our top mares.

Your split from Nevele R was not amicable?
No. It ended in court. I said to the Trustees "there are no winners here just two losers." It could have been sorted and a lot of my dreams ended when I left there. I love going around selling semen. It was a great challenge mentally, you had to know everything that is going on and you had to think quickly on your feet when doing deals. I might travel 100,000km a year and I put my heart and soul into it. It gives me no pleasure to watch Nevele R not being the industry leader it was. It saddens me actually.

But you still sell semen?
I got Falcon Seelster as part of my settlement with the stud. He only lived another year but we still have 1300 straws of semen left. If you work on an eight straw per foal average that could be around 100 services and he still has strong appeal. There are two people in Australia who are just geniuses when it comes to frozen semen. They have been getting some mares in foal with one or two straws and so the numbers fluctuate. Mike Hill of Nevele R in also outstanding with frozen semen - the best in New Zealand I believe.

I seen to remember a few stories about Falcon Seelster. Was he a savage horse?
No, territorial, like most stallions. There was an incident with him, he was no boy's horse but the only knowledge you can trust about stallions is that you can never trust a stallion. Boyden Hanover was a laid back horse who suddenly hospitalised a handler one day. We had a policy at Nevele R that even if a stallion did not have a paid service that day we gave him a service because they know when they are not in the team and it makes them mean. Even Wayne, od all people, walked into a paddock at an American stud one day to look at Soky's Atom without thinking and got bowled over and ended up in hospital. Soky's Atom was a pussy cat most of the time but ook out if he was not first into the breeding barn. Not trusting any stallion is lesson number one in the stud business.

Falcon Seelster is now your only stallion property?
Yes. "A geriatric semen seller flogging a dead horse" is the best quote I have heard about that. But I believe in him. He is an amazing horse in that he was foaled in 1982 and he is still high up in the sires list and with a leading New Zealand Cup chance this spring (Franco Ledger). Because he is such an outcross from all the Meadow Skipper blood in our mares now he is a last chance saloon for many breeders.

What changes to the sales pitch do you have to make?
I don't go after the commercial breeders looking for sales toppers. His foals are never going to do that. I concentrate on the smaller breeder with a few mares looking for a cross from a horse like Falcon while it is still available. I get multiple bookings from breeders in that area. They desperately want a filly but his colts are tops too. I'm sure the commercial breeders will be knocking on the door when the semen stocks get low. I would have done 15,000km on the road on my last trip to Australia. You need to reinforce to some people that frozen semen from Falcon is no different to frozen semen from any living stallion - which is fact anyway.

How did you come to get him? He was already a successful stallion in the US.
One of those freaks of chance. He was doing a great job up there but his owner died and we happened to get on to the case from something I heard very early. We got the deal done quickly with the estate which was keen to sell. There were some very disappointed people around when they found out. We shuttled him for two years then he got EVA up there and had to stay there for four years. He sired McArdle there. He was the first shuttle stallion, in reality, and owned in New Zealand. That showed what could have been done.

That race at Delaware when he ran world best 1.51 on a half mile track (1985) before a crowd of 55,000 and held that record for nearly 20 years is still great iewing on You Tube - goose bumps stuff. What made him special as a racehorse and stallion?
His breeding cross(Warm Breeze over an Overtrick mare) is an outcross, but a proven cross and as I said mares with Meadow Skipper blood gave him a lot of options. There were thousands of them. Gait and soundness were two of his biggest attributes. His horses have a lot of stretch in their stride so that even if they were smaller than average it didn't affect their gait stretch. Courage Under Fire has a similar attribute. The other thing about Falcon Seelster horses is soundness. He ran in 51 races himself and his stock proved durable on the racetrack.

The drop in the number of mares available must make your job more difficult?
There used to be 9000 mares being bred from when Nevele R started and Australia had 19,000. There were 2800 here now two; 2200 yearlings and there will be 2000 foals this year. The same thing has happened in Australia. It has gone from 14,000 foals then to just over 5000 now. It does make things harder now but it is really bad news for racing people of the future.

The Australians prefer to come and buy made horses here?
Some of their leading figures tell me they are going to give up breeding and buy. But as the number of horses for sale drop so the prices will go up and it won't be so good for them then.

How do you get the message across?
I talk to trainers about it a lot. I tell them they should be working on their owners getting them to breed horses because otherwise in five years they won't have a business to operate. There can't be a better time in history to invest in the breeding industry. People who do are going to be rewarded.

The worry is that numbers have continued to drop since 1987 even through good economic times. Is your industry irrelevant to more people?
I don't believe so. As I said breeders have been hurting and they probably can't see any way out. Costs are high. Prices are good but not all that much higher compared to the rise of returns in other industries. Now is the time to return.

You spent many years dealing in horses for export. You and your brother John were pioneers sending top Austalians to Yonkers back in the 1960's (Apmat, winner of an International Series). How active are you now?
I have virtually given up that side of it. If I act as a go between now it is usually over breeding arrangements rather than selling. I used to love it but you can only do so many things when you get a little older.

Of course you raced and sold thoroughbreds too and was it a Hobart Cup which was one of your more memorable wins?
I came from Tasmania and did some amateur riding there. I bought Sir Trutone especially to win the Hobart Cup which he did(1973). A big thrill and a big day. I sold Butternut from Canterbury and she won a Moonee Valley Cup and many others. One of the first deals John and I did was sell a horse called Northern Demon from Ireland to a Whitney family stud in the States. That was big time then.

You have won nearly every award and honour going in harness racing and apart from having a sales toppers at the PGG Wrightson Sales you seem to have done it all. What now?
Topping the sales would be nice but I am changing my focus. My son and daughter now both live in Europe and I am aiming to organise the business so I can spend three months a year up there. I have been blessed to still have the health and energy to carry on and the enthusiasm is still there. But you have to remember the time comes to smell the roses along the way. That is my focus now.



Credit: David McCarthy writing in HR Weekly 19 Sep 12