A champion sire and a family that stayed the distance

When they start something, they like to finish it, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

They have been riding the ups and downs of working on the land for almost two hundred years and each generation has passed the assets on to the next.

They have farmed on the same Wairarapa property since 1857 and over the past 85 years have also run a thoroughbred stud, which, like its owners, has stood the test of time.

Earning a livelihood from racing is not for the faint-hearted and nothing is guaranteed.

However, tonight we are acknowledging a thoroughbred entity that for generations has both survived and thrived, albeit not without challenges.

The stud, which is now being guided by a third generation, was first represented at the National Yearling Sale in 1941, selling originally under the Te Parae banner and since the late 1990s as Little Avondale.

The farm was once among many in the central districts but has become something of an outlier, as the breeding industry has centralised in the northern region.

There are now just a handful of commercial studs south of Taupō which stand a sire.

But swimming against the tide can still be worth the effort and New Zealand’s premier sire is currently a Little Avondale resident.

Per Incanto won both the Dewar and Centaine Awards for the 2025–26 season and has succeeded the late Savabeel as New Zealand’s most expensive stallion currently standing at stud.

He is the first Central Districts sire to claim the Dewar Trophy for more than 30 years, but it is not a new experience for the stud, which has stood three Dewar winners.

Agricola earned the Dewar for Te Parae in 1968, the year he also was the leading sire in Australia, while Oncidium, who was at stud for just nine seasons, won the Dewar three times and twice headed the Australian sires’ premiership.

In addition, three of Te Parae’s mares have been named the Broodmare of the Year, most notably two-time winner Sunbride who is a New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame inductee.

The stud was established when Te Parae was owned and run by Nancy and Alister.

It was Nancy who was responsible for establishing the stud and did most of the hands-on work with the horses, while Alister, who had initially been a reluctant participant, focused on pedigrees and marketing, along with the other farming activities. Alister was also a driving force behind the establishment of the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association.

Their sons, Tom and Buzz, later took over running the farm and stud alongside their respective partners, Gay and Susie.

Buzz and Tom amicably split their business interests in the mid-1990s, with Tom continuing to farm Te Parae while Buzz and his family moved to Little Avondale, with most of the horses.

Though Tom’s involvement with the stud was reduced, he made further contributions to racing as an administrator, notably when becoming the first chairman of the New Zealand Racing Industry Board.

Little Avondale is now run by Buzz’s son Sam and his wife, Catriona.

Managing the stud has always been a partnership between the couples and the strong female input is emphasised by the fact that the current co-proprietor is a genuine dame.

Dame Catriona, whose life changed instantly when she suffered a spinal cord injury in a riding fall in 2002, has become an inspirational figure, both inside and outside the racing community, through the way she has coped with adversity, and her fundraising efforts as founder of the CatWalk Spinal Cord Injury Trust.

That Little Avondale has been able to do so well in recent years says much about the resilience and spirit of the current owners.

In addition, decisions made by Nancy, Sam’s grandmother, still echo through the Little Avondale accounts.

The stud bred and prepared the first yearling to make $100,000 at public auction in Australasia, in 1974, and marked another milestone last year, when Little Avondale’s Zoustar colt fetched A$1.7 million at the Sydney Easter Sale.

It was the stud’s first seven-figure yearling, and the dam was a direct descendant of Haggada, one of two thoroughbred mares Nancy brought to Te Parae in 1938, after marrying Alister.