Coolmore is a horse stud in the upper Hunter Valley in NSW, about 6 hours from Canberra. We left early on Saturday morning, despite Naomi making us late and complaining the whole trip about forgetting to bring her handbag. After a few stops and morning tea, we arrived at the small town of Denman where we were going to stay the night. Arriving in the early afternoon, we headed off to the Pukara Estate olive grove where we sampled their olives and their many varieties of olive oil and balsamic vinegars.
After filling up on afternoon tea, we headed off to visit some nearby vineyards where we got to try their latest offerings. We stayed overnight in Denman on Saturday night, spread out over a few motels because the trip had been more popular than any single motel in a small town could accommodate.
Sunday morning started with a visit to Golden Grove farm, just west of Denman. Golden Grove is a boutique broodmare and spelling agistment farm, were we got to see several newly-born foals and their mothers. One of the foals had been born only the previous evening. To most of us from the city this was the first time we'd ever seen mares and their foals so close up and personal. It was touching to see the mothers staying beside their foals and seemingly guard them from the frightening hoards of Women in Racing.
After Golden Grove, we travelled a short distance to Coolmore which is a very impressive, and obviously exclusive horse stud. We could tell this immediately by the locked gates and security guards. But of course, recognising us as being Women in Racing, we were immediately granted access. Coolmore covers about 9,000 acres of well manicured grounds and has about 170 staff; a large number of whom are probably gardeners.
We were escorted around by Sebastian who is one of the Coolmore marketing team. He guided us through the stables and sheds where the stud work gets done and then showed us the stallions that are the reason that Coolmore is so successful. We saw Encosta De Lago, Haradasun, and Musir. He gave a great explanation of the horse breeding business, especially from the international perspective as Coolmore Australia is part of a much larger international organisation. He spoke about the daily routine in the stud and the upcoming busy season that is about to start in September.
We finished the tour with coffee and a snack on the terrace of the office building overlooking a small picturesque lake.
Regretfully we left Coolmore and headed back to Canberra, stopping for a late barbeque lunch at Mooney Mooney getting home around 9pm.
We all agreed that it was a fabulous trip and one that most will want to do again.
A slideshow of the weekend is below. As usual, if you have any problems seeing it, click here and then click on the Slideshow button.
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