From grocery business to a million-dollar stud farm

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33588, 17 July 1974, Page 8

From grocery business to a million-dollar stud farm

(From J. J. BOYLE, racing editor of “The Press’)

HAMILTON. Forty years ago, 16-year-old Ralph Walker and his 12-y ear-old brother, Graham, found themselves

— on the death of their father — as working partners in a grocery shop in Birkenhead, Auckland.

Yesterday they announced their purchase for slm of the famous Kinross Stud at Te Kauwhata •« Waikato. The vendor was Mr John Malcolm, who established the 200-acre property as a thoroughbred stud in 1957, and saw it becpme one of the most famous New Zealand nurseries mainly through the influence of an imported stallion. Summertime.

The sale of Kinross to the company formed by Mr and Mrs Ralph Walker and Mr Graham Walker includes the imported stallion Azemann, 43 broodmares (12 of them by Summertime), four rising two-year-olds, and 15 weanlings. Went farming The fortunes of the Walker brothers were not established soiely on their energies in the grocery' business. Graham Walker went farming on his own account in the late 1930 s before serving overseas in the Second World War. After the war the brothers joined forces in the purchase of an Auckland bakery. This they sold to buy a run-down tea importing business, and from that point they prospered. More recently they have been land developers in Auckland.

And only three months ago they instructed their solicitors and accountants to proceed with inquiries for the purchase of Kinross.

“Today a dream has come true,’’ Mr Ralph Walker told racing writers from several parts of New Zealand at a special function arranged at the stud yesterday for the announcement of the sale. Breeding plans Mr John Malcolm plans ■ to move only a few miles from Kinross Stud, and will breed from three or four mares. He became a I thoroughbred breeder in partnership with his brother, Jim. at Te Rapa. ! in 1937. The brothers I bought Summertime for ; 3000 guineas in 1952, but i the partnership was dissolved five years later. Mr John Malcolm then installed Summertime at Kinross, and there the horse that was a winner in the Queen’s colours in Eng-

land, sired the winners of more than s2m. After the announcement of the sale yesterday the stud stallion Azemann and

16 weanlings were paraded for representatives of the news media. Azemann was a winner

in France for the Aga Khan. His first crop of yearlings will be sold at Trentham next January.