Inglis Looks to the Future at Riverside

As Inglis celebrates 150 years in business in 2017 it is not only commemorating its past, but also planning for its future with the construction of its new state-of-the-art headquarters, Riverside Stables at Warwick Farm. The Inglis Australian Broodmare and Weanling Sale, which follows on from the Easter Yearling Sale and Chairman's Sale on Apr. 10 to 12, will be the last sale held at the company's historic Newmarket headquarters in Randwick, where Thoroughbreds have been sold since 1867, and under the Inglis banner from 1905 (click here for Part I of this series, recapping Inglis's history).

Inglis's Newmarket property sits on what was once a hive of horse racing activity, but time has seen the horses condensed to Randwick Racecourse as the area's health and education sectors have grown. The sale of the Newmarket grounds to super fund Cbus Property for development for an estimated A$260-million was publicly announced in mid 2015, but Inglis Managing Director Mark Webster said the company had been planning for such an event for six years.

“Going back to 2009, we had a board strategy meeting and we decided we should plan for the future and identify land in the Sydney area that we could purchase in case we ever needed to relocate,” he explained. “At the time it was just forward-planning when we purchased the land at Warwick Farm; there was no set time and we weren't even 100% sure we would have to relocate. We were just planning for the future.”

With not many large parcels of property still available in Sydney, Webster said Inglis jumped at the chance to buy 26 acres from the Australian Turf Club at Warwick Farm Racecourse to the west of the city.

“When we bought the land in 2009 it was after doing a thorough review of land in the Sydney area,” he explained. “We engaged a couple of property consultants to try and identify a site. We need a lot of land to run an auction facility, and Sydney is increasingly being developed. There wasn't a lot of land close to the city, but we were able to organize to buy some land off the Australian Turf Club at Warwick Farm. It's a large parcel of land, 26 acres, and the horse community is there already. It's a bit like Keeneland; the model we'll have is that the sales facility will be on a major racetrack. The difference [from Keeneland] will be that we'll have our own luxury hotel on the grounds.”

Situated on 26 acres–with an additional 10 acres designated for parking–the A$140-million Riverside Stables will dwarf the 12-acre Newmarket paddocks in size. There will be stabling for 800 horses, 200 more than at Newmarket.

“The major benefit is space,” Webster said. “We can have more stabling and we're doubling the amount of space per horse for parading. There will be open parade areas so the horses can really stride out. We're really there to show off the produce of these breeders that have spent three years planning them, and we want to make sure they can show them off to the best of their ability. Equally, the buyers can really get a clear view of what they're investing in.”

As those traveling from afar for the Easter sale have come to know, vendor hospitality marquees are a common feature of the sale, and Riverside Stables will cater to those needs.

“We're building hospitality pavilions all around the grounds,” Webster noted. “So rather than having vendors operating out of marquees to look after their clients, right around the grounds there will be dedicated hospitality pavilions which have kitchens and a full array of food and beverage for clients during our sales. Wherever you are around the grounds you can stop and get refreshed while you're looking at horses, so it's going to be very comfortable for buyers.”

Selling will take place in an air-conditioned 'sales arena' with ringside dining for 600 in addition to theatre-style seating. Inglis will also offer the option of private boxes. Webster explained, “We've got major buyers from the Middle East and Asia that like to bid and eat in private. We'll have those facilities for them; they can book a private box upstairs. The boxes can accommodate between 10 and 20 people; they're different sizes. It's like when you go to the football for a corporate event. You book a box or a suite and you're overlooking the facility and you can entertain. It could be buyers or it could be major vendors entertaining clients during the sale. It just gives that different experience during a sale.”

One of the features of Riverside Stables will be a 144-room luxury hotel adjacent to the sales arena called The William Inglis. Run by Accor Hotels, the largest hotel operator in the Asia Pacific, The William Inglis will boast plenty of dining and hospitality options, including a paddock-to-plate style restaurant named The Newmarket; a ringside bar, a cafe and a micro-brewery. There will also be a rooftop bar and pool deck overlooking the racecourse and stables as well as the Georges River and Chipping Norton Lake, as well as a rooftop day spa and wellness centre.

Inglis will also continue its relationship with existing partner hotels in the city and will offer frequent shuttles.

“It's all there as an option for them [at Riverside],” Webster said. “If [guests] want to stay there for part or all of the sale they're welcome to do so. For those coming to Australia for the first time, we would encourage them to spend some time in the city and we'll shuttle them in and out. It's about a 40-minute drive back to the city, which is not that arduous. And they can experience everything Sydney has to offer. And once they've got the tourist thing out of their system, they can stay in the hotel overlooking the racecourse and relax and enjoy the sale.”

In addition to being a 40-minute drive from the city, Riverside Stables is a 25-minute drive from Sydney International Airport, and will be about the same distance from a planned new airport the opposite side of Warwick Farm.

While Inglis will leave a large piece of its history behind at Newmarket, it has gone to efforts to ensure its heritage is stamped on its new site. Newmarket is best known for the Moreton Bay Fig tree that towers over the sale pavilion, and either side of The William Inglis hotel will be two Moreton Bay Fig trees grown from the saplings of that very tree.

Riverside Stables is set to be completed in December, with the Inglis Classic Sale in late February of 2018 the first sale scheduled to be held there. Webster, who was at Riverside Stables as this interview was being conducted in mid-March, said everything is running according to schedule.

“It's all on time; so far I'm not pulling too much hair out,” he said. “I'm looking at the hotel right now. It's an eight-storey hotel that will have a fantastic paddock-to-plate restaurant and a spa, it's got a rooftop pool deck and bar overlooking the racecourse, so you can watch the races up on the roof from the pool. We're up to level six of the eight-storey hotel now and in terms of the barns, about 80% are up already, so it's coming together really well.”

Webster said the team has been inundated with requests to visit the facility.

“I've got three tours this morning and another on Monday,” he said. “I haven't officially announced the details of the hard hat tours yet, we've just had people saying they want to get in early, they don't want to wait, so we're already doing them quite regularly. I have to say everyone who has walked through the hotel, through the lobby and up to the rooms, they just fall in love with it straight away. It sells itself. It's grand and unique, and it's still a building site. When it's finished and landscaped it's going to be incredible.”

While Webster, as managing director of Inglis for 10 years, will leave behind many memories at Newmarket, he spoke philosophically about the move.

“I've wrestled with this for a while, but we started planning in 2009 and over time you just get used to the idea that it has to happen,” he said. “There has to be progress. Where we are at Randwick, it has changed the lives of so many people, and it's been a beautiful facility. When the company started selling at Randwick in the early 1900s, all the houses and property surrounding Newmarket were actually trainers' stables, and they were walking horses through the streets of Randwick down to the racecourse. All of those are gone; the trainers are on the racecourse now, so the whole thing has changed. There's now a huge university, one of the biggest in Australia, across the road and one of the biggest hospitals is on the other side of the road, so the whole precinct has changed. It's really not an equine precinct anymore, it's a health and education precinct, so it really is time for us to move out and let it be what it needs to be for the community in Sydney.”

Arthur and Jamie Inglis, cousins and directors of Inglis and fifth-generation Inglis family members who both started with the company in the 1970s, expressed similar sentiments.

“The new facility we're going to will be outstanding, no question, but Newmarket is such an iconic site–no other auction house in the world has a major sale yard as close to the CBD as we do at present,” said Jamie Inglis. “There's no doubt there will be mixed emotions when we have our last sale, but there's no doubt we're doing the right thing moving to a new site. It'll be magnificent with a big number of boxes available, big parade areas and great facilities for the buyers. It'll be world-class, and to leave Newmarket, it has to be world-class.”

Arthur Inglis added, “I grew up [at Randwick] so it's been our family home from the early days. Now I don't live here with my kids, but it has a lot of good memories for me and I think for a lot of our clients it holds a place in their heart too. They've been coming here for years so naturally we'll all miss it in some respect. But the health and education are what the precinct is about [now], so we've sort of grown out of context with our surroundings. It's densely populated and only growing, as is the traffic. The fabric of the area is a lot different than it was many years ago.”

Arthur continued, “In addition to that, we have been planning this since 2010. For some of our clients it seems to be all of a sudden, but we've had a fair while to get our heads around it; it's something we've been working towards. While it's not urgent we do it this year or next year, we feel the time has come. We feel comfortable we're doing the right thing, and as we have watched the new facility evolve, the planning for it and investment in it, and now we can start to see it taking shape, we're very excited about it. It's coming together very quickly and very well, and it'll only get better each week. There aren't too many new sales facilities in the world, so it's created a lot of interest.”