Lime Country today announced the purchase of Ballygrove in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW after moving from New Zealand to the southern highlands five years ago. A blue-ribbon stud address, Ballygrove is situated on the Pages River in the picturesque Blandford area, 37 kilometres north east of Scone. The farm is ideally located to walk mares into the country’s best stallions that stand at studs such as Arrowfield, Coolmore, Godolphin, Newgate, Vinery and Widden.
Ranging from irrigable river and creek flats through to undulating open basalt country, Ballygrove is the perfect farm on which breed and rear thoroughbred horses.
Ballygrove will be the new home for Lime Country Thoroughbreds.
“The move comes after many months of looking for a property with the size and scale that we require together with a plentiful water supply. Ballygrove comprises 285 acres, bores and river frontage, and stunning scenery. It is surrounded by farms that produce top quality racehorses and we really felt like we’d found the ideal place when we finally found it.” Jo Griffin said.
“The property we have been at in Burradoo has been outstanding. If we could pick it up and take it with us, we would. However, with approximately 90-95 mares being covered each season, and the majority of them visiting stallions based in the Hunter, we decided it was time to move closer to the stallions and to the heart of Australia’s breeding industry.”
“We had discussed the move with some of our longer term and larger clients and they were all supportive of the move. Greg and I are blessed to have some very astute business people amongst our client base who have been tremendously supportive of the business.”
The Griffins are already working with designers on a large new-build yearling barn, yearling paddocks and walkers, with particular emphasis on optimum safety for both stock and team members. “It is a luxury to be able to design a purpose-built yearling barn from scratch. We have a busy six months ahead of us as we will move before the season and will be prepping for the 2022 sales from the new barn.”
Lime Country has had another strong season of yearling sales results, with a 96% clearance rate across their 52 yearlings offered this year, averaging $183,511 across all sales, and their first million-dollar yearling sale on behalf of the Dubois family to Tom Magnier at Easter.
The core team at Lime Country will be making the 400km relocation with the Griffins but they will also be looking for new career minded people to join them. “There is a wealth of talent in the Hunter so we’ll be advertising some new roles for the farm over the coming months and look forward to expanding the team.”
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