Gooree Park's Wagyu farm goes to Black Caviar owner

The 3342-hectare property, Biraganbil, was the first-cross Wagyu beef operation of Gooree Park, with a capacity of 1000 breeding cows and progeny.

Gooree Park was actually an aggregation of three properties. Aside from Biraganbil, which was purchased in 1998, the operation included Cullenbone and Galambine.

Established by the late billionaire Eduardo Cojuangco Jr, Gooree Park had three main elements: wine, thoroughbred breeding and training and commercial Wagyu.

Last month, Biraganbil was sold to Galileo Group chief executive Neil Werrett, himself deeply embedded in horse-racing as a director of the Victoria Racing Club and owner of undefeated champion mare Black Caviar.

Reports put the sale price at $16.6 million, a figure denied by Inglis Rural Property's Jamie Inglis, who negotiated the off-market transaction.

"That figure is incorrect," Mr Inglis said.

"The price is undisclosed but rural land is selling well, so they didn't pinch it. It was a very commercial rate."

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Biraganbil features 130ha of centre-pivot irrigation and 855ha of arable land plus native pastures.

It supported the Gooree Park business plan with irrigated lucerne, cattle breeding and fattening, and the ability to grow cash crops using five centre pivots with water supplied from the Cudgegong River.

Gooree Park Pastoral bred first-cross and pure Wagyu progeny on Biraganbil that were either fattened or grown to specified weights and then sold to feedlots.

After nearly 40 years of ownership, Mr Cojuangco's family were approached by Mr Inglis on behalf of Mr Werrett's family, which had been searching for cattle country in the region.

Mr Werrett has said he will continue breeding Wagyu cattle.

"They think, and I'm sure they're right, that this is the best return in the cattle game at the moment," Mr Inglis said.

"When you're selling Wagyu yearlings, they're usually 350-450 kilograms and they're getting up to $7.50-$8.00/kg liveweight, so plenty of these yearlings are returning $3500-$3800.

"There's probably an extra $1000 a head in round figures compared to an Angus.

"When you've got 1000 cows, you can probably sell 900 yearlings, there's $900,000 straight up."

Australian Wagyu Association chief executive Matt McDonagh said Gooree Park had been a member since 1999 and that it was participating in the Crossbred Wagyu Project, sharing breeding and DNA records on about 500 progeny.

"My understanding of Gooree Park is that it's been working in long-term partnerships with specific supply chains for quite some time," Mr McDonagh said.

The standard production system in the southern regions involved Wagyu bulls over Angus heifers, with the progeny weaned at about 400kg aged between 10-12 months before they entered feedlots for intensive grain feeding to create the breed's signature marbling.

The volume of first-cross Wagyu produced across Australia had dropped during the drought, he said, but had since rebounded to about 200,000 head a year and was growing roughly by 20 per cent annually.

Mr McDonagh said it was difficult to build a standard business case comparing straight Angus and first-cross Wagyu operations.

"The numbers change all the time, depending on the season, and grain prices and supply and demand," he said.

"We deliberately don't publish those sorts of figures, we encourage anybody who's considering it to have a conversation with the different supply chains that are operating and and get an understanding of where that market position might be for them."

Unlike most breeds, he said, Wagyu cattle were rarely openly traded but reared to meet parameters set by specific feedlots.

Mr McDonagh said Angus had become the breed of choice for crossbreeding with Wagyu and the association was working on a guide specifically for new entrants that would advise on breeding values and issues like birthweight for optimum production.

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