The thoroughbred industry has quickly become accustomed to the fact that American owner and breeder John Stewart doesn’t do things by halves.
So, while it may have been unconventional, Stewart’s livestreaming of his 2025 mating plans for his Resolute Racing broodmare band shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who has observed his sudden rise from thoroughbred obscurity over the past 18 months.
Seated alongside the venture capitalist was his girlfriend and director of breeding and bloodstock Chelsey Stone, Resolute’s farm manager Noel Murphy, bloodstock agent and general manager Gavin O’Connor and Coolmore America’s Adrian Wallace.
Then there was Pedigree 360’s co-developer Michael King who joined the quintet in Kentucky via Zoom from Sydney.
The founder of MiddleGround Capital, who has horses in training in America, Europe and Australia and a growing broodmare band based in Kentucky, Stewart was a quick convert to the Pedigrees 360 and its ability to aid matings decisions and yearling selection after coming across the product via a Google search.
Tim Rowe
He subsequently made an offer to buy the Australian-owned company, which was developed by small-time breeder Peter Stewart (no relation to John) with the assistance of his friend and fellow breeder Graham Watson, IT expert King and business development manager Peter Howard.
About nine months after initially meeting with the Pedigrees 360 team, which occurred when Stewart was in Australia to watch Storm Boy compete in last March’s Golden Slipper, the sale of the company has recently been completed.
Peter Stewart’s goal when starting Pedigrees 360 was a simple one and, since it was established in 2022, the business has built a loyal customer base around the world who are keen to tap into line-breeding going back nine generations.
“I'd always been interested in breeding horses, and I was in a position where I had a little bit of spare cash, so I thought it would be an interesting investment,” Peter Stewart says.
“And the objective is to give our clients the opportunity to either breed or buy superior racehorses, as simple as that, and also to avoid the lemons, because there are plenty of expensive lemons that turn out to be no good at all.
“We think the software is pretty good at identifying a lot of those horses that may look good on paper, but really don't perform on the racetrack.”
"The objective is to give our clients the opportunity to either breed or buy superior racehorses, as simple as that, and also to avoid the lemons." - Peter Stewart
As the project gathered pace, Watson injected some extra funds into the business and King, a neighbour of Peter Stewart’s who had also owned shares in horses over the years, was brought onto the Pedigrees 360 team.
His coding and information technology skills have been pivotal to the business’s success and popularity with thoroughbred figures globally.
“I worked in technology for 25 years across some big organisations in Australia and the UK and when the opportunity came up to get involved in the product, I jumped at it as sort of bringing together two of my big interests,” King says.
“There's so many different pieces to the puzzle. We see this as another really strong tool that people should have on their toolkit when they're making purchases or breeding decisions.”
When John Stewart first signed up to Pedigrees 360 in about December 2023, few people knew who he was outside those paying close attention to the American market.
Stewart’s initial email expression of interest came four months before Stewart would set the Inglis Easter sales ring in Sydney alight, underbidding Winx’s $10 million first foal by Pierro, and spending $5.44 million on six yearlings.
At the time, it quickly became apparent to King and company at Pedigrees 360 that Stewart meant business when it came to his horses.
“We do, I guess you could say, background checks on most of our customers, so we got up to speed pretty quickly (about John’s intentions),” King revealed.
"And after a few months, we got into more detailed conversations with him and he expressed an interest in acquiring the company and that's taken a little while to flesh out.”
With Stewart’s investment in the company, Pedigrees 360 plans to grow its foothold in America where the thoroughbred industry is worth more than $1.2 billion annually.
“John’s got some incredible ideas and the way that he uses the product at the moment is quite unique. So, over the next three to six months, we will sit down with John and really map out a product roadmap,” King said.
“Obviously, with John's backing, we'll have a better opportunity to execute on some of the ideas that we've had.
“Our initial focus was in Australia, but we would have 50 per cent of our customer base now in the Northern Hemisphere. And obviously, the States is a big growth region for us over the next few years.
“The doors that John's able to open for us to explore those opportunities are almost once-in-a-lifetime sort of stuff.”
Tim Rowe
Watson, a Sydney-based businessman who invested in carparks, is thrilled the way the Pedigrees 360 business has developed with his close friend Peter Stewart.
“I've been a small-time breeder for 25 years and it's been a pretty straightforward process,” said Watson, who has a close association with Segenhoe Stud’s Peter O’Brien.
“But what we've been able to do here in a short period of time is advance this product to a point where it's commercially attractive not just to Australian breeders but to worldwide breeders. And we've found that it's been well accepted and we're very excited about where the future lies with this product.”
"John’s got some incredible ideas and the way that he uses the product at the moment is quite unique," Michael King
John Stewart told The Straight about the impending acquisition of Pedigrees 360 in December.
“I think it's a really good business that has really good technology behind it and technology is something that we need to be relying on more in the industry,” he said.
