🔒 🔒 New Zealand’s Byerley Park forced onto the market with affected trainers none the wiser about their long-term future

The future of Byerley Park as an Auckland training facility is up in the air, leaving 11 trainers uncertain about the long-term prospects of the private complex amid an ugly dispute involving the property’s owners.

Prominent New Zealand racing identity Daniel Nakhle is embroiled in a bitter multimillion-dollar financial argument involving his mother Henriette Nakhle. They are joint directors of two companies associated with large parcels of land on Auckland’s outskirts.

A High Court ruling has ordered that family companies Karaka Estate Limited and Byerley Park Limited, the latter the thoroughbred training and breeding property operated by Daniel Nakhle, be wound up and assets sold off.

Trainers Donna Logan, Steven Cole, Barbara Kennedy, Jenna Mahoney, Kylie Hoskin and the partnerships of Sean and Emma Clotworthy, Bruce Wallace and Grant Cooksley and Danny Walker and Arron Tata are all based at Byerley Park.

Between the eight different training stables, they have about 160 horses in work at any one time and the liquidators’ sale of the 89-hectare allotment at Kingseat could force the trainers to move away from Auckland, New Zealand’s most populous city.

It is understood that liquidators Paul Vlasic and Derek Ah Sam of Rodgers Reidy have guaranteed trainers at least three months’ notice if they are forced to vacate Byerley Park.

Nakhle would not comment on his family’s falling out or the sale process for Byerley Park when contacted by The Straight this week.

Among the horses in training at Byerley Park is the Nakhle-bred-and-owned dual Group 1 winner Crocetti who finished third in the Group 3 Balmerino Stakes at Ellerslie on Melbourne Cup day.

Bayleys agents Peter Sullivan and Kristina Liu are conducting the sale of the property on behalf of the liquidators Rodgers Reidy.

Sullivan told The Straight all media inquiries concerning the Nakhle properties had to be emailed and overseen by lawyers before a response would be provided.

The Bayleys real estate advertisement for the prime landholding says the site is on 12 separate titles with a dedicated training track, multiple stable blocks and multiple homes on the vast Byerley Park property.

It is also in close proximity to New Zealand Bloodstock’s Karaka sales complex, Ellerslie racecourse as well as Westbury Stud and Haunui Farm, two leading thoroughbred breeding operations. It is also only 18km from Pukekohe racecourse.

Training facilities close to Auckland are limited. Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay have a private facility near Karaka where Lance Noble prepares a team of horses on their behalf.

Byerley Park is about an hour and a half’s drive to major training centre Cambridge and a further 40km to Matamata racecourse, another major centre.

At present, Pukekohe only has 47 boxes on course but Auckland Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Paul Wilcox revealed that the club, which also oversees Ellerslie, was considering a proposal to build more stables at the course.

“We’re going through a process at the minute to explore what it would look like if we built boxes out of Pukekohe, and what then the likelihood for an uptick of trainers wanting to train out of there,” Wilcox told The Straight. 

With the large reform shadow hanging over New Zealand racing, Wilcox was reserved about the desire to immediately press ahead with such a large-scale investment in training facilities at the track, which is about 55km south of Auckland’s central business district.

“There’s lots going on in the industry at the minute, so it’s about making sure that if we do decide to do it, we’re not building a white elephant,” he said.

“But everything’s on the table at this stage, absolutely.”