Taking over Murulla Stud near Scone was a great challenge for young couple Tim and Celie Nolan, and they have proved equal to the task - thanks to their strong rural background and because they are not afraid of hard work.   In this profile, written by Graeme Kelly,  they describe how they came to purchase the property and their plans for the future.

OFFICIAL statistics prove that starting up a business can be a very hazardous venture, but the newly married couple Tim and Celie Nolan have had the confidence, courage and know-how to take up the challenge of striking out on their own at a relatively young age. Their venture started when, in the middle of 2008, they bought Murrulla Stud, at Wingen just north of Scone, and set up an agistment and yearling preparation operation.

  Although just starting a family - their first child Macalister was born last June - the Nolans are two young people who are now very much on a mission. They work tirelessly together on Murrulla, caring for feeding and generally looking after the many horses they have on the property as well as carrying out fencing or any other maintenance work that is required with Macalister not far away in a pram - and already they are enjoying the fruits of their labours with a loyal and growing band of clients supporting them.

  “Soon after we were married Celie and I agreed we were keen on having our own place,” Tim said. “We both knew Murrulla before the property came on the market, and when it did, we thought it was a great opportunity for us. If you are in the thoroughbred business the Hunter Valley is the place to be and we felt having Murrulla presented us with a very good opening.

  “We haven’t been disappointed because everything has been going very well for us since we settled here.
As soon as we arrived we were offered a lot of work preparing yearlings as well as having mares on agistment and a few mares of our own. It’s a joint effort between Celie and myself, although I can’t say I do much of the office work.”

  Situated on the New England Highway Murrulla is complete with a Coach House - from the Cobb and Co days - on 80ha of undulating, well-grassed paddocks with plenty of shelter. It has 23 boxes as well as foaling and yearling preparation facilities. Importantly, water is also plentiful with the Stony Creek running through the property as well as the underground Kingdon Ponds.

  Tim and Celie both had a background set among horses and the country way of life. In Tim’s youngest days his father Basil was a bookmaker, so he became involved in the world of the thoroughbred not very long after being born in 1977 at Warwick, on the Condamine River, about 160km south-west of Brisbane. Celie, who has an older brother and a younger sister, was born, in 1983, at St George on the Balonne River some 520km from Brisbane and known as the “Inland Fishing Capital” of Queensland. Tim was very much into thoroughbreds from an early age, Celie - with her parents running a sheep and cattle property - had her initial equine involvement with stock horses.

  After beginning her primary schooling in the outback town of Bollon, 113km west of St. George, Celie moved to Toowoomba Preparatory School and then went on to St Margaret’s Girls’ Grammar in Brisbane, where she excelled in sports and rowed in the school’s first eight. In contrast Tim, who has a brother and four sisters, says “while I played plenty of sport I didn’t excel the way Celie did”; but he did have an affinity with horses from his earliest years and, as a youngster, he would ride his pony 5.5km to Clinton Vale Primary School from the family farm.

  “Raheen was originally part of Maryvale Station, which was a huge sheep and cattle property at Gladfield near Warwick, during the draught horse era,” Tim said. “After buying part of the property in 1951 my grandmother and grandfather, whose name was also Basil, originally had a dairy farm, but I think it was in the mid-sixties, he sold the cows and went into breeding horses.”

  The first stallion to stand at what became Raheen Stud was the Bois Roussel horse Boxwood (GB), who sired among other notable performers the 1958 QTC Queensland Derby winner and dual BATC Doomben Cup winner Earlwood. “Dad was a bookie in Brisbane when I was growing up, but he and my mother Dianne also had horses and cattle on the property,” Tim said. “They also grew potatoes and onions for what, in those days, was a more reliable cash flow. Then in 1986, the first year they had the Magic Millions sale at the Gold Coast, Dad gave up bookmaking and never went back to it. From then on he has been in the thoroughbred business full-time.”

  That year the Nolans were standing the stakeswinning Kaoru Star horse Monarch Star. Later they stood the likes of multiple stakeswinning Call Report (USA) horse Christopher; the brilliant Crown Jester, by Baguette, who had been Champion Australian Juvenile and First Crop Sire in 1984-85; and Forging Ahead (IRE), who was a three-quarter brother-in-blood to Last Tycoon. In more recent times, through a connection with Woodlands Stud, the multiple Gr.1 winner Dodge, by Canny Lad, has been standing at Raheen. He stood alongside the dual Gr.3 winner Publishing, by Testa Rossa, the stakeswinning Danehill (USA) horse Shovhog - a second placegetter in the STC Golden Slipper Stakes-Gr.1 - and Stromberg Carlson, a son of Redoute’s Choice, under the Nolan family’s banner at Raheen in the 2009 season.

  During the years in which his father was immersing himself deeper into the stud business, Tim was completing his schooling at St. Joseph’s Nudgee College in Brisbane. From there he went to an agricultural college at Dalby, about 200km west of Brisbane, for a year before going home to Raheen. It was a similar story for Celie, who went back to her family’s property at Bollan after finishing her secondary education at St. Margaret’s. She spent about 12 months there helping her parents mustering the cattle and rounding-up the sheep before, in 2001, venturing south to Scone after successfully applying to undertake a veterinary nursing course.

  “As part of the course I had to work on a stud, and fortunately, I found a position at Vinery,” Celie said. “I was there for five years. Peter Orton had taken over as general manager of Vinery a little earlier and Tony Scott was the farm manager. I did the veterinary nursing work at Vinery in the stud season, and then I went over to the yearlings when they were being prepared.”

  Among the horses Celie prepped for the yearling sales was the youngster by Red Ransom (USA) from the Zafonic (USA) mare In The Past (GB), who was subsequently named Domesday. She remembers having a “little bit of excitement” with the colt, which nearly resulted in her suffering a broken finger: “One day I was holding him for Percy Sykes. He was looking at his feet and picked up a hoof. Domesday got a fright and pulled backwards and somehow my finger became caught up in the lead, but fortunately not much damage was done in the end.”

  Everything worked out well when Domesday brought $420,000 at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in 2004 and then continued on to capture the STC Silver Slipper Stakes-Gr.2. He is now one of the Darley stallions standing at Twin Hills at Cootamundra and had his first winner when Backgammon was successful at Flemington in late December.

  Another yearling Celie prepared for the 2004 Easter Yearling Sale was Benicio, by More Than Ready (USA) from the classy Danehill (USA) mare Mannington, who is also the dam of Gr.2 winner Romneya. After bringing $525,000 at the sales Benicio, whose grandam is the STC Golden Slipper Stakes-Gr.1 winner Bint Marscay, went on to record a victory in the VRC Victoria Derby-Gr.1 at Flemington and to secure a place on Vinery’s stallion roster the following year.

  However, after completing the course at Scone Celie stopped working at Vinery and again returned to Bollan. It was during the worst of the drought and her father was ill, which meant on occasions she “went on the road” assisting with droving the family’s cattle around the River Tambo region. Nonetheless Celie still maintained her connection with the thoroughbred industry by preparing yearlings for the Gold Coast Magic Millions and Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sales for Kitchwin Hills, at Scone.

  Part of Tim’s work during his years at Raheen also revolved around preparing yearlings on assignment for the major sales: “Actually the first Easter sale preparation I was involved in was for Craig Anderson when he was at Bellerive,” he said. “Around that time Martin Byrne was at Wakefield and I did a couple of years at the Magic Millions and Easter sales with their yearlings with my brother Basil.”

  Along the way Tim and Celie had met at the Easter yearling sales in 2002. “We saw each other at the sales from that time onwards,” Tim said. “We were just good friends for a couple of years but I think it was 2005 or 2006 that a romance started. “I was at Warwick and Celie was at Bollan which was about a 570km drive . . . which is a fair distance.”

  Despite this tyranny of distance Tim and Celie’s romanced blossomed and they set their wedding day for July 6, 2007, and after their honeymoon, they settled on Raheen: “We were both working on the stud but then late in August the equine influenza outbreak hit,” Tim said. “When the moving of horses was opened up in October we originally brought three mares down to Wingen to send them to stallions and then to put them on agistment at Petwynvale, which is owned by the Wamsleys.

  “After we arrived the border was closed for about another 10 days and during that time we worked out that we’d send another 20 mares down. “We had to go this round about way, up and down hills and around a lot of turns - it was a dreadful drive, but anyway we arrived and survived.”

  The Nolan’s stayed on at Wingen with the mares until January, living in the house at Murrulla. Then, fatefully, Martin Byrne decided to sell and Murrulla went on to the market. Immediately grasping the opportunity Tim and Celie bought the property and took over the stud on June 1, 2008: “We had some existing clients by then, and it’s all been going well since. We have also picked up some new clients which has been encouraging for us,” Tim said. “We have prepared some yearlings for Cressfield, Yarraman Park, Liverpool Farm and we were asked by Amarina Farm and Wood Nook Farm to take some mares to the Gold Coast for them last June. Added to that we’ve brought in some other new clients and we generally have about 50 mares on the property.”

  Foremost among them is Mamzelle Pedrille. A multiple Group winner of 11 races by Zoffany (USA), she has so far produced five winners featuring the brilliant Hawkes team-trained O’Lonhro, and the lightly raced but highly talented stakes winner Kishkat. The progeny of a number of other high quality mares are now regulars on the property, as they undergo yearling sale preparations.

  Also among them have been the colt by Danehill Dancer (IRE) from Tertian mare Cathie’s Lane who was prepared by the Nolans when he brought a successful bid from Bart Cummings of $425,000 at last year’s Gold Coast Magic Millions Yearling Sale. They also prepared the colt Rock of Gibraltar (IRE) from the Palace Music mare Scribbling for the 2009 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale. A half-brother to the stakes winners Prince of War and Prince Arthur, he was knocked down to Tony Bott for $200,000 at the 2009 Inglis Australian Easter Sale.

  The standing of Tim and Celie in the industry was further enhanced at the 2009 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale in Sydney when Murrulla received the award for the best presented draft: “That was quite a compliment,” Celie said. “We were delighted with that.”

  They were even more pleased with the emergence of a yearling from that draft as a highly promising two year-old. By Jet Spur from the Hurricane Sky mare Roaring Forties, he was sold to Aquanita Racing Club, Queensland, for $70,000, and entered the stables of Liam Birchley. Now racing as Slice and Dice he won convincingly at Eagle Farm at his second outing, and obviously has a bright future. “He was the first horse from the Classic draft to race and, obviously, the first one to win,” Tim said. “He won by six lengths in impressive style.”

  The Nolan’s draft also sold well at last year’s Scone yearling sale, which provided a further boost for their reputation in the district and further helped their business along. That success has led to thoughts of expansion: “We are fortunate that we are in a position to lease another 200 acres from the Wamsleys,” Tim said. “It is part of Petwynvale and is all fenced beautifully, so there is plenty of room for us to move. We could always do with a few more mares coming in and we’d like to build up our own brood mare numbers but I feel, at our age, we have time on our side. At the same time we want to keep the agistment going because a lot of people have been good to us since we took over Murrulla. We have a lot of repeat business but good new clients are always welcome.”

  Murrulla Stud has started the 2010 sales series in fine style achieving $70,000 for a Charge Forward colt from a Flion Fenena mare and $60,000 each for a pair of Magic Albert fillies from  Cassis and Dainty Deb (both as agent for Yarraman Park) at the Inglis Classic. At the earlier Magic Millions sale they recorded $120,000 for a Lonhro filly from Flying Mahal and $100,000 for an Alert filly who was a half-sister to Russetting from Granny Apple (as agent for Kooringal Stud).

  At this stage standing a stallion at Murrulla is not on the agenda. However Tim admits that it is something he won’t rule out somewhere down the track : “I suppose standing a stallion is in the blood. We are not really thinking about that at the moment, but at the same time if the right opportunity arose at some point in the future, who knows? We’ve always had them at Raheen, so to us, it wouldn’t be a big drama to stand one. Against that, the biggest problem with standing a stallion is getting support for them and getting the clientele with the right quality of mare. If the right client came along with the right horse I guess we’d certainly think about it. Our present idea though is to get more of our own mares and to expand a little bit on the operation we currently have, but we are very happy about the way things have progressed.”

Permalink| Mar 10, 2010

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