Vinery Stud and Kia Ora Stud have entered into an agreement to combine their operations in the Segenhoe Valley.

Both properties border the Pages River and the merger comprises more than 5,500 acres of land making it one of the largest thoroughbred operations in the heartland of Australia’s thoroughbred industry.

The revised ownership structure will see Kia Ora owner Ananda Krishnan become the seventh partner in Vinery joining Steve McCann, Gerry Harvey, Neil Werrett, Alan Green, David Paradice and Greg Perry.

McCann, who recently took over as Chairman of Kia Ora, said it will be business as usual to a large extent while ensuring their best combined resources are working together across a number of areas.  “There are some great aspects of both businesses with the most significant being the combined property.  That’s something that very few farms can offer.  The pooled expertise and knowledge takes us to another level, as does the combined capital and resources, but we will formulate our own strategy.”

The stallion rosters at Vinery and Kia Ora will remain unchanged for the immediate future and both farms will retain their heavily-invested broodmare bands.

“The Vinery partnership has been together for almost 20 years and we’ve bred and owned horses with Kia Ora over that whole period,” McCann explained.  “It’s a natural evolution and being neighbours makes it a pretty compelling case to come together.”

“It puts us in a pretty strong position but it’s not about trying to compete with anyone else.  We’ve got our own view as to how we want to grow and we’re very active investing quite a bit of capital between both businesses.”

At last week’s Gold Coast Magic Millions Sale, Kia Ora sold seven yearlings for an aggregate of $2.42million while parting with $7.65million for ten yearlings headed by the $1.80million Exceed And Excel half-brother to Group 3-winning 2yo Empire Of Japan (Snitzel).

Vinery Stud sold 18 yearlings for a Top 10 turnover of $5.98million with a Too Darn Hot filly (GB) to be trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott the most expensive at $1million.  Its consignment also included a Russian Revolution – Hot Summer Night colt that was purchased by Kia Ora for $500,000.

The Vinery – Kia Ora combination has a Group 1 record that’s second-to-none.  Champion Australian first-season sire Russian Revolution was a Vinery graduate as was Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Farnan who heads the roster at Kia-Ora.

Champion Hong Kong Sprinter Wellington is a son of Vinery sire All Too Hard and he was bred and sold by Kia-Ora Stud in partnership with Vinery partners David Paradice and Steve McCann for $70,000 at the 2018 Gold Coast Magic Millions.

Vinery General Manager Peter Orton said working together will almost triple the opportunities available.  “The exciting part of it is that we can continue to do what we’re doing and, at the same time, grow our businesses.  You can have money, but if you don’t get opportunity, you don’t move forward.

“The original Vinery model was set up in a way that brought in active participants within the industry with the option of having their brand.  The benefits of working together with likeminded people means each business can add to the other.

“Vinery will continue to produce a level of service that everyone understands.  Kia Ora will do the same thing.  It will pretty much run independently, but there will be some really positive crossovers into the future.”