In an announcement months in the making, Andy Makiv has been named the new managing director of Godolphin Australia. The Straight's Tim Rowe sat down with Makiv to discuss his journey to leading the Australian branch of one of the world’s largest thoroughbred operations.
Andy Makiv, the newly appointed Godolphin Australia managing director, has found the thoroughbred racing industry provided him with the best of both worlds.
On Thursday, Godolphin Australia announced Makiv had been promoted to the Australian arm’s top job, just the third person to lead the major southern hemisphere operation since Sheikh Mohammed purchased the Ingham family’s Woodlands racing and breeding empire in 2008 for more than $460 million.
He succeeds Vin Cox who resigned last October after six years at Godolphin to join Zhang Yuesheng’s Yulong conglomerate.
“Taking on the role of managing director at Godolphin Australia is an incredible opportunity. It’s an operation where the integration of great people and world-class bloodstock drives our success,” Makiv told The Straight.
“Our business is about producing stallions for the roster and that starts at the farms. Our stud managers are dedicated and gifted people and they along with their teams manage the stallions, the broodmares and the foals all the way through to the education process.
“The racing stable aims to develop these young horses into hopefully great horses. This success is a testament to Dubai’s extraordinary commitment to the thoroughbred and also the industry here in Australia.”
University educated, with a double degree in agricultural science and law, Makiv found his way to Godolphin in 2008, about the same time as the walk-in, walk-out sale of Woodlands took place, to act as nominations manager of Darley Victoria before taking on the state’s general manager position.
It was a title he held until late 2022 when he was promoted to Darley Stallions’ head of sales and, after an 11-month process where internal and external candidates were interviewed, it is Makiv who has the title of Godolphin Australia managing director.
“Our business is about producing stallions for the roster and that starts at the farms."
- Andy Makiv
It’s been a journey for the man who grew up in Victoria’s Gippsland region where his father who had had a passion for racing had an influential role in Makiv’s chosen profession as did an Australian racing and breeding institution, the Hayes family’s Lindsay Park.
“I grew up in that space, I loved racing, and I did agricultural science and law at university, as half of me wanted to sit on a tractor and the other half wanted to sit in an office,” says 50-year-old Makiv.
“I liked agriculture, I liked cattle and I loved horses and I ended up at Lindsay Park syndicating horses through a company called First Tuesday Racing.”
In an industry as much about relationships with people as it is with horses, the First Tuesday Racing experience proved the catalyst for much of the next two decades of Makiv’s career.
"Half of me wanted to sit on a tractor and the other half wanted to sit in an office." - Andy Makiv
At First Tuesday Racing, and at Lindsay Park in general, Makiv worked closely with Mark Pilkington, David Hayes and Tony McEvoy and the late Peter Hayes’ son Sam, who would go on to run Cornerstone Stud in the Barossa Valley. He also worked with Darren Thomas, who has become one of Australia’s biggest owners under the Seymour Bloodstock banner.
It was during that period when Makiv also forged a lasting personal and professional relationship with Victorian businessman Colin McKenna, who raced three-time Group 1 winner Jameka. McKenna also bred and owns current Ciaron Maher-trained Toorak Handicap fancy Another Wil, a son of Darley sire Street Boss, like Godolphin’s Underwood Stakes runner Pericles.
Bren O’Brien
Makiv’s involvement with McKenna has helped him become one of Australia’s most successful owners and breeders over the past decade.
“What we find in our sales roles is that the clients end up becoming great friends as well as mentors, which is what's so fantastic about the racing industry,” Makiv says.
“It's a relationship-driven business and a lot of people are drawn to racing through passion. You come across a lot of successful people, a lot of great business people and if you listen you learn a lot through your clients.”
It’s that experience, and those during his tenure at Godolphin, that will hold Makiv in good stead for his stint in the hot seat.
So, can significant changes be expected at Godolphin during Makiv’s reign? Nothing drastic, at least in the short-term, with “efficiencies” and “sustainability” words Makiv continued to use.
He says: "The two pillars of our business are the stallions and the racing stable. We’ve got an exciting racing stable led by James Cummings, a powerful stallion roster and a strong team that supports it all.”
It’s not just a transition at an executive level at Godolphin Australia, the same can be said for its two-state stallion roster following the recent retirements of champion stallions Lonhro and of Exceed And Excel.
But Makiv believes Godolphin has much to look forward to, with the first foals by nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe - Godolphin’s most successful racehorse - arriving this spring and elite sprinter Bivouac’s first two-year-olds soon to hit the racetrack.
“I said at the stallion parades some weeks ago, that the lawn at Kelvinside, it's hallowed turf,” Makiv says.
“It has had the likes of Street Cry, Exceed And Excel, Lonhro, Commands, Medaglia d’Oro, Dubawi, Shamardal and Teofilo all walk on that lawn at some stage.
“So, it shows that in the last 20 years that we've been in business, standing horses and shuttling horses, it's been a very successful operation.”
“I said at the stallion parades some weeks ago, that the lawn at Kelvinside, it's hallowed turf."
- Andy Makiv
Godolphin homebreds, the brilliant three-year-old colt Broadsiding and last-start Run To The Rose winner Traffic Warden, are also flag bearers for the Godolphin and already seen as future stallions on the Darley roster either at Kelvinside in the Hunter Valley or Northwood Park in Victoria.
“The fact that two of them are heading to the Golden Rose as favourite and second favourite is testament to all in the business and highlights that the process is working,” says Makiv.
“We breed and race horses with the aim of producing stallions for the roster and through our race fillies hopefully produce the mothers of our future stallions.
"We are in search of the next Exceed And Excel, Lonhro or Street Cry, a champion stallion that can help fund the business and ensure our sustainability.”
