The breeding industry lost one of its most loyal and long-time supporters last week when 88-year-old John Richardson passed away in Waikato Hospital following a short illness, capping off a sad week for the thoroughbred industry after funerals for trainer Mike Moroney and veterinarian Bill Ewen.
John substantially contributed to the New Zealand industry after arriving from England in 1974 aged 37. Early in 1975, he was appointed editor of the newly founded Bloodhorse Magazine, a position he held for three years before shifting to Dalgety Bloodstock as its pedigree writer.
During his time at Bloodhorse Magazine, John greatly contributed to the compilation of the New Zealand Stallion Register.
Iconic racing journalist J.J. Boyle in 1981 wrote: “New Zealand Racing owes much to John Richardson and Ken Browne who have laboured mightily to come up with ‘Racehorses of New Zealand,’ published by Dalgety Bloodstock.
“In close to 800 pages they give all the information that could be wished for about the 6000 jumpers and flat horses that raced in New Zealand last season.”
Dalgety Bloodstock made a concerted effort to rival Wrightson Bloodstock in the thoroughbred auction market but fell short and folded in 1983. John then founded his own bloodstock company, which he called The Carbine Agency, running it successfully for 19 years from his 12-acre property on Bruntwood Road, halfway between Hamilton and Cambridge.
John immediately succeeded in his new business by selling top two-year-olds Nordic Seal and Era of Triumph to California.
A year later, he negotiated the importation of Pompeii Court, sire of Courtza, the first New Zealand-bred Golden Slipper winner in 1988. He also negotiated the sale of the top three-year-olds Hi Reason and Jurango to the USA, and later the Trentham Golden Mile winner, Pokare.
These early successes with racehorse sales launched John’s business into trading in stallion shares and nominations, as well as the quotation and importation of stallions and broodmares, using his contacts in the USA and motherland England where all his early working life had been with thoroughbreds.
John had always been keen on horses from pony club days in Herefordshire when a local farmer gifted him a very fast pony which got him started. His first memory of racing came as a six-year-old when captivated by King George VI’s champion pair of 1942, Sun Chariot and Big Game.
At 17 he rode out for a season for Cheltenham trainer Frenchie Nicholson who mentored the great Pat Eddery. John had about 100 rides in point-to-point and hurdle races, mostly around Herefordshire, winning twice and riding once in a two-mile chase on the hallowed turf of Cheltenham.
John’s amateur riding days were interrupted by his two years at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst where he received an education equivalent to a university degree. He then left and joined a stock auctioneering firm in East Anglia from where he passed his auctioneering exams in 1959.
In 1964, he formed his own company called Sandown Bloodstock Sales which conducted sales for eight years with John as auctioneer at Sandown Park in Surrey between 1964 to 1973 before the racecourse redeveloped its facilities and had no room to continue with the sales.
It was then that John decided on a reconnaissance trip to New Zealand where he had thoughts of continuing his thoroughbred interests.
John had also started a second business from 1966 called ‘The International Pedigree & Research Agency,’ which acted for the British Bloodstock Agency’s offices in Knightsbridge and Newmarket, compiling all the enormous catalogues for the Tattersalls Newmarket Sales.
This company also did freelance work for many of the major studs and trainers in Newmarket. His only employee at that time was an 18-year-old named David Minton who would become one of Ireland’s most famous bloodstock agents over the ensuing 50 years.
But John had liked what he saw in New Zealand in 1973, so he returned to England to sell up his chattels after making the decision to relocate, arriving back in New Zealand in 1974.
In his later years John wrote some very good breeding articles for the now defunct weekly racing paper, The Informant. He was skilled in many of facets of racing and breeding and made a very worthwhile contribution in the industry’s halcyon days.
In 2015, John and his wife Christine sold their Bruntwood Road property where they had bred and sold many yearlings over their 36-year tenure. They retired to Leamington where they resided for six years before moving to Te Awa Retirement Village where Christine sadly passed away only two months later.
John passed away on the 16th of March. He is survived by his three daughters, Emma, Lucy and Kate.
– Brian de Lore
