State-of-the-art training facility Lynton purchased by Racing NSW

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The late Alan Cardy’s private Goulburn farm added to governing body’s equine property portfolio

Racing NSW has continued its investment plan by adding to its land banking of equine properties within close proximity of Sydney after purchasing Lynton, the late Alan Cardy’s private thoroughbred training facility near Goulburn.

Bought for an undisclosed sum after failing to meet the reserve at auction, Racing NSW reached a deal to buy Lynton earlier this month to add to Bong Bong Farm near Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands, a 97.5-hectare state-of-the-art facility developed by Paul and Angela Fudge which was bought in July 2021 for $22.5 million by the industry regulator.

Racing NSW also owns the Cessnock racecourse, which has plans in the works to be developed into a 300-horse training centre, and chief operating officer Graeme Hinton yesterday confirmed to ANZ Bloodstock News that Lynton would join the industry’s property portfolio.

“It is a beautiful property, purposely built for thoroughbred training and it will be a great asset for the NSW racing industry,” Hinton said.

“We’ve already had people knocking on the door and we’ll undertake an expression of interest campaign to see who is keen to look at it. 

“We do want to look at the number of stables there in the meantime to see if we can expand as it’s only got 26. The first thing we’ll do is talk to [Goulburn Mulwaree] Council about adding to that because that will let [users] get the most out of it.”

Located six kilometres west of Goulburn and two hours from the Sydney central business district, Lynton has 26 boxes, a 1900-metre irrigated grass track, a 1500-metre sand track and an undercover horse walker as well as an indoor arena, day yards, spelling paddocks and a five-bedroom, fully renovated homestead.

Lynton also has two modern four-bedroom guest or staff houses. 

The Racing NSW-owned Bong Bong Farm is also set to be leased out to trainers with Hinton expecting tenants to be utilising the facility in the New Year.

Donovan and Co’s Clint Donovan, who was charged with selling Lynton in conjunction with Meares & Associates on behalf of the Cardy estate, said the 210-hectare facility was initially passed in at the online auction, which closed on December 1, but negotiations continued with two parties, leading to Racing NSW exchanging contracts last week.

“They’ll look after it and there will be horses trained there, which I think is really important for the industry that it’s not lost to a show jumper or dressage or a land developer and racing in NSW will be the beneficiary,” Donovan said.

“There were six bidders on auction day but we couldn’t quite get it done on auction day. Racing NSW was one of those bidders and it came down to two in the end and they came out on top, so it was a good result.”

The sale of the property will settle in the New Year.

Lynton was established by former Wallabies rugby union representative Cardy in 1986 after modelling it on the Colin Hayes-developed Lindsay Park training operation in South Australia’s Barossa Valley.

In the more than three decades since, Cardy employed Lisa Smith, Danny Williams and, most recently, Kurt Goldman to train his horses from the exquisite farm.

At the helm for the past decade, Goldman – the original trainer of Group 1 winner Hellbent (I Am Invincible) and the handler of stakes-winning mare Eckstein (I Am Invincible), among others, during his stint at Lynton – has remained on the Goulburn property maintaining a “business as usual” approach until the sale of the farm and the horses in the past week. 

Cardy died on December 19 last year, aged 76.

The majority of the Cardy-owned horses were sold through Inglis Digital last week, including the promising Pierro (Lonhro) filly Strangeless who was sold to trainers Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr for $235,000.

Racing Victoria has also invested heavily in land, purchasing a 397-hectare greenfield parcel near the Inglis sales complex at Oaklands Junction, to the north of Melbourne, for $25.3 million.

The southern administration is still determining how best to use the site, which could potentially become a training centre and/or a racecourse, similar to how the Pakenham greenfield site has been developed over the past decade and operational since 2015.