By TBV, 28-10-2022

22-year-old star on the rise, Marcus Heritage is a lover of all sports; AFL, American Football, Golf, but most of all racing.

Currently working in Nominations at Victoria’s prestigious Swettenham Stud, Heritage ensures that all clients looking to have a mare served at Swettenham are getting the best possible results, helping them match to the best stallion for the mare.

“As part of my role, I help the breeders, whether it is booking their mare to a stallion, doing mating’s for them or helping them at sales, purchasing or selling horses,” he said.

“At Swettenham, our business model is just to help as many people as we can, which is where my role comes to the fore.”

Growing up on the Gold Coast, Heritage found himself at the Magic Millions sales and race day every year alongside his father who races horses, ultimately falling in love with the horse from there.

“I was going to Magic Millions with my old man as he races a few horses,” Heritage said.

“Fairly early on in my life I knew that somewhere in breeding or racing was where I wanted to work in the future.”

“You have to get a feel across all aspects in the industry to learn as much as you can which gives you the chance to succeed as you go further in life.”

When starting off his career in this marvellous industry, Heritage found himself undertaking a traineeship with Racing Queensland, allowing him to learn the ground works of how the industry operates.

“I started a traineeship via Racing Queensland which helped me learn the basics of the game.

“I actually started working with Simon Hunter who is now Greg Eurell’s bloodstock consultant.

“He was a trainer on the Gold Coast at the time and he taught me the ins and outs of trackwork.”

Post-school, Heritage made the move down to Victoria to work as a stablehand with one of the state’s leading stables, Lindsay Park which ultimately led him to his current opportunity at Swettenham Stud.

“After school I moved down to Victoria where I worked in the stables with Lindsay Park,” Heritage said.

“Through the team there, I come to meet to the team at Swettenham where I then did a season working with the stallions.

“I moved to work with Danny O’Brien and subsequently the guys at Aquis Farm where I was doing a similar job to what I am doing now.

“You have to get a feel across all aspects in the industry to learn as much as you can which gives you the chance to succeed as you go further in life.”

When asked about an end goal in his career, Heritage aims to one day become a bloodstock agent, but right now is quite content with where his career is at.

“Growing up and going to Magic Millions I did fall in love with the bloodstock side of things,” he said.

“Buying a horse as a yearling and following it through their racing career with an end goal of breeding from them interests me highly.

“I’d love to be a bloodstock agent one day but in the meantime, I am loving my work here at Swettenham.”

As for what the future of both breeding and racing looks like and what changes could be made in the near future, it revolves around giving the younger generation a better opportunity to establish themselves in a work environment that suits everyone – including better pay for those on the ground.

“The Australian racing and breeding industry is very strong at the moment with prize money and sales results improving every year and from this, you would not want to be working in the industry anywhere else in the world,” Heritage said.

“But, there is a reason as to why everyone is crying out for staff.

“How do we make it more appealing? The hours are not always very friendly and we still throw around big amounts of prize money to some of these races with staff working for next to nothing in stables.

“Share some of this money around, improve it as an industry so that people are greatly rewarded for hard work and that will in-turn create more staff, especially the younger people wanting to work.”

Already establishing himself as one of the young guns in this industry, Heritage has a few words of advice for anyone pursuing a career in both racing and breeding.

“For any young person out there looking for a profession in this industry, the amazing thing is that there is no set structure to create a successful career,”

“Ask plenty of questions and work at a few different places because everyone does things differently and the more you know, the better off you hold yourself going forward.”

by Tara Madgwick, Breednet – Thursday October 13

A third of the runners in this year’s $15million The Everest are by Swettenham Stud based sires past and present, but it’s their new recruit Wooded (IRE), who holds the promise of producing sprinting stars for the future.

Wooded (IRE) is a G1 winning sprinter by Wootton Bassett.

A brilliantly fast speedster by Wootton Bassett that scored his career defining Group I win at three in the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp (1000m), Wooded is covering his first book of mares in Victoria this spring.

“He’s the only Group I winning first season stallion in Victoria this year and we’ve seen how popular his sire Wootton Bassett has been in NSW, so it’s not surprising Wooded is being supported by some of the nation’s most respected and successful breeders… and importantly their mares are all going in foal!” said Sam Matthews of Swettenham Stud.

Over 90% of the mares covered by Wooded have gone in foal first cycle and that’s important as we get deeper into the breeding season.

“Wooded’s fertility is as good as I’ve seen, a few of the mares he has got in foal have proven to be very difficult mares previously,” Matthews revealed.

“Any mare that has given us trouble in the past has been sent to him and to absolutely no surprise they are now in foal. This great fertility and strong libido has made his book very easy to manage and has freed up spots for breeders that have either been bumped or missed elsewhere.”

Standing at a fee of $22,000, Wooded joined the Swettenham Stud roster after two years in France at Haras de Bouquetot and his first Northern Hemisphere bred foals have greatly impressed their breeders.

“Our first foals by Wooded are consistently showing strength and depth as well as being good sized foals, proving quite similar to Wootton Bassett’s progeny.” – Benoit Jeffroy, Haras de Castillon & Haras de Bouquetot

“Our Wooded filly looks fast and strong. She has a great action, a deep shoulder, a good topline and hip-to-tail. She is well balanced.” – Olivier Foucher, Domaine de Quetieville

“Our colt has real points of strength; he is good sized and well balanced with plenty of depth and bone.” – Giulia Gariboldi, Haras de la Mercerie

Wooded has many positives to consider for the Australian breeder as a Danehill free outcross sire with his impressive physical scope sure to compliment the Australian mare pool. He is a genuine speed horse as reflected by his race record and is a C:C on the speed gene testing meaning his progeny should be best suited from 1000m to 1600m.

“He’s the fastest son of Wootton Bassett and we strongly believe he has what is required to produce these top class sprinters Swettenham has become renowned for,” Matthews concluded.

“We look forward to seeing his Everest runners in the years to come.”

Call Marcus Heritage (0429 632 397) for information and enquiries.