When you are about to speak to the CEO of one of the world’s biggest thoroughbred auction houses and former director at one of the largest news corporations in the Australia(News Ltd), nervousness is bound to creep in. It manifested itself when I called him twice over thirty minutes early, after getting the time zone conversion wrong. Needless to say he was away at another meeting.
But Mark Webster, has a way of speaking in dulcet tones which calms the most frayed of nerves. His scintillating stoicism in the face of my mawkish questioning left me no doubt about the generous warmth his staff and partners must feel towards him.
Q: What was the basis of your partnership with
The Everest? How did it all begin?
A: Our company here, Inglis, we like to support innovation. We think that the racing regulator in our jurisdiction, Racing NSW is very innovative by introducing The Everest. We thought we should support it.
We also thought that The Everest was a better race to connect with every day people. It's in the new format and creates conversations all year-round.
The average person on the street doesn't understand the concept of a Group Onerace (which The Everest isn’t) but they are still interested in this format of racing they just understand that it's an Australian race withpredominantly Australian runners. One of the things that has changed in the last few years is that the (Gr.1, 3200m) Melbourne Cup has become very international.
The Melbourne cup is a staying race whereas Australian thoroughbred bloodlines are much more oriented towards producing sprinters.
The Melbourne Cup in the last 50 years has been a bit of an anomaly with what we (Australians) produce as breeders. Australian sprinters have been always the best in the world our biggest races for a distance which we are not breeding for Is not consistent with our breeding industry The Everest the richest race on turf in the world aligned with our breeding industry is actually producing a broader appeal.
Q: What are your factors which led you to choose
Santa Ana Lane as your contender? Can we assume one of the factors is the fact that the horse is an Inglis graduate?
A: Out of the seven (7) horses confirmed till date as contenders, four (4) are Inglis graduates. The rest did not go through any auction process at all. We selected Santa Ana Lane for a few reasons:
Firstly, because, we believe he has the ability to win the race. Over the past six (6) months he has won three (3) group one races. If you look at Australian racing results over the last year, there's only one other horse, who has won six (6) and she's the world-champion, Winx.
All three (3) of his wins have been over the sprinting distance. His last two (2) races have been at the Group One level and he has won both of them. This shows us he’s got the form and he has shown that he is rapidly improving. We believe he has the potential to win.
The other factor which was important to us was the ownership base. Santa Ana Lane is owned by a syndicate of 14 businessmen who are friends. we like the idea of supporting syndicates, again this year.
We like the profile of the horse and we like the profile of the owners, who are very good people.
Q: Have you considered attaching or creating a sale around The Everest week?
A: Yes, definitely. We have a sale in October called the Ready2Race. We auction two-year-oldhorses. We moved the timing of that saleto the week of The Everest. It's on the Monday now after the Everest.
The Everest is on Saturday. Sunday becomes an inspection day of these horses. And we run the sale on the Monday. Interested parties can watch videos of these horses, leading up to the sale and make their selections. And when they are in town for the Everest, they can come to buy the horse of their choice.
Q: Does your staff excited about the event and your contender?
A: All our staff is on our team. We will involve them on the lead up activities as we get closer to The Everest.
Q: Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your family? (Mark Webster will be leaving Inglis in December but will remain on their board as a non-executive director)
A: I came to work here at Inglis eleven (11) years ago. Before I joined Inglis, from my Navy days, my wife and I lived on a farm outside of Sydney. We were breeding racehorses ourselves. We were involved in breeding, selling and racing thoroughbreds at home. We really enjoyed the sport. When Inglis was looking for a new CEO, they wanted someone from a business background who had an interest in horses. When I started here, we had to stop breeding thoroughbreds because the Inglisstaff is not allowed to get involved in breeding thoroughbreds as it a conflict of interest. We now breed quarter horses instead and we have a lot in of stock. We have a lot in a fun in competing with quarter horses and we also race thoroughbreds with some friends.
We still live on the farm and have 3 children. When I leave here in December I am staying on the board of Inglis as a director and I will become a professional director. I am considering taking on board a few more board appointments. I want to be on the board of May be four to five (4 – 5) companies.
The priority for me, when I came to Inglis was to set the company up for the next one-hundred (100) years. That took some time to execute, including improving the value of the land at Randwick so that it could-be sold for the maximum price.Then building the new facility here at Warwick farm and moving all our customers out here.
And seeing the Riverside Stables & Hotel project through. The hotel is doing really well. They have had several big conferences there, including one with our Prime Minister.
We have also just had the most successful yearling for the Southern hemisphere. It was a record A$242 million in yearling trade.
Now I'm in a position to handover to somebody else with the company being in very good shape. They can take this forward and make it even more successful and come-up with new innovations for the company in the future. And I have still got six months to go.
There still some fun things left to do.
Published in EverestDiaries Issue 3, Vol 2
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