KO THOROUGHBRED RACING IS ON THE MARCH

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Managing business growth can be a precarious pastime which is why any meaningful expansion has to be carefully planned, both in terms of how it is structured and in terms of the pace at which change is affected.

As the saying goes, a big business is just a successful small business and KO Thoroughbred Racing is certainly on that path.

“We’ve had an innovative model from the start,” offered KO Thoroughbred Racing’s Managing Director Kobie O’ Brien.

“We try to do things that no one else is doing.

“Our marketing now is something we put on the forefront of what we do. With so many horses there is unlimited opportunity to get so many more people into ownership ... and I think our marketing is something we had to work on in the past, but now it is really sharp.

“I think that is also the view from the outside looking in ... and ideally it is set up in a way that results can come with it.

“The enjoyment factor for our owners has been a huge contributing factor in the growth as well. The fun vibe that we help create is infectious. It certainly is a driving factor in helping us get owners for a lot of horses.

“We tend to celebrate our successes well and that whets their appetite for more.”
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“Something I have been pretty good at is surrounding myself with the right people and taking advice from the right people,” continued O’Brien.

“The people who have helped me along the way are all successful in their own right and I have taken a lot of leaves out of their books.

“Being a very eager learning, I’m very keen on seeing what people are doing well and try to do it better ... or get people to do it better with me who bring added value to what KO Racing is all about ... like Kurt Cockburn.

“In Kurt’s real estate background, he probably had the same exponential growth in such a short space of time as KO Racing had.

“I didn’t have that business experience he does so, by bringing him into the fold, we have added another dimension to the business.

“I think it was a bit of a no-brainer for both of us. He wanted to go down the racing path and I had the background in racing ... and I wanted to evolve in business, and he had the background in business.

“Couple that with our mutual love of racing and it is all a positive collaboration.”
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“It is not hard to see how much of an effect this restructuring has had in a short space of time.

Kurt is behind a lot of the recent growth we’ve had, and there have been other appointments to help us push forward.

“The way I see it is that every good business has to have key people in key positions and that is exactly what we have done.

"Kenric Head has joined the team as the new Racing and Bloodstock Manager and we've welcomed Brittany Hacker as our new Manager of Accounts and Administration.

“We have put the best people in the best roles and in positions that are going to benefit us going forward.

“I’m really grateful for what we do have now in terms of business structure and how much better it is for everybody involved now.

“Everybody involved knows the direction we are heading, and they are all committed to helping us get to where want to be.

“You have got to aim high and then put a proper plan in place if you have any chance of achieving your goals and obviously, with the changes we have implemented to that end, the future of the business looks quite bright and promising.”
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“The plans are quite drastic for this year and next year,” stated O’Brien.

“Toowoomba, the Darling Downs and Provincial racing in Queensland is a jurisdiction that we have always targeted and where most of our success has come ... and we will continue to target that going forward.

“We have got twenty to thirty horses now and that will probably double by the end of the year.

“As with our recent overall business structure development, our actual racing operation on the ground will also be expanded.

“Horses will still be in the Corey and Kylie Geran’s stable, who we have been with since we started out, and with whom we have had considerable success.

“Also, we are extremely excited about the partnership with trainer Benjemin Smith that we have established in Sydney now. Expanding interstate is something that we have been looking into for a while.

“You probably couldn’t have gone straight out and done that. We had to get this presence here in Queensland first ... and we’ve got a couple of years of results now coupled with a solid foundation ... which probably has given us the freedom to buy the quality to be able to target the races in Sydney now ... which we have done.

“Smith is a Group 1 winning trainer with a good strike rate, so we are looking forward to that association.

“Chris Munce is another Group 1 winning trainer we will using in Brisbane and some horses will also go to Nick Walsh in Rockhampton, who has an absolutely phenomenal strike-rate.

“Places like Mackay, Townsville, Rocky where it is arguably easier to win races ... we will be buying horses that profile accordingly for that.”
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“We are also constantly working to identify opportunities in the racing program.

“For example, with the tried and tested horses we have bought, especially Nikau Spur and Without Revenge ... the mile to middle distance horses ... there is a gap in the quality in the races on a typical Saturday. You are running in five or six horse field with horses who aren’t performing down south ... a gap which we have targeted with success.

“Obviously, racing is a changing landscape so you have got to keep looking for new opportunities that might present themselves. Sometimes they are very obvious, but not everybody sees things the same way.

“In my eyes, the other races where there is a big gap in quality sometimes, are the early season two-year-old races and we will now actively be engaging and testing that option ... and Chris Munce has been earmarked to play a large part in that for us.

‘it’s just another case of having the right person in another key position.

“I think Chris Munce, in the last few years in particular, is the trainer with the right style of training to take on that challenge. I can see him winning those sort of races and I think that is going to ultimately produce big results for us in those races.

“In saying that, Corey and Kylie Geran have done a great job with the young horses he has got as well so we’ll go to the March sale, and he’ll have a mixture of young horses and tried horses, along with Nick Walsh.

“KO Racing is a growing concern and that, as much as anything else, is very much reflected in the expansion of our horses going to different trainers.”
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And for Kobie O’Brien himself. His role will not change in the new setup.

“From my perspective now, I have always been the face of KO which I will continue to be,” said O’Brien.

“My background in form analysis will hopefully continue to help us to buy good, tried horses ... which it has in the past.

“I’ll continue in that sort of role. I’ll be present at most race-days. I be making sure it is as seamless an experience as I can for our clients.

“Of course, there will always be challenges and some unforeseen circumstances might arise to test us, but we try to see off as many of the difficulties as we can early by staying ahead of the game ... and, so far, that strategy has served us very well."

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