John Singleton to sell Strawberry Hill Stud and get out of racing

Larrikin businessman John Singleton is selling his horse racing empire and Central Coast home in a $100 million clear out and moving to the beach.

John Singleton with jockey Josh Parr after winning the Ladies Day Cup with Strawberry Boy at Hawkesbury race Club. pic Mark Evans

Larrikin businessman John Singleton is selling his horse racing empire and Central Coast home in a $100 million clear out and moving to the beach.

“I feel sorry for those old blokes at the races looking grumpy,” Singleton, 81, said. “I always said I would sell up when I have been doing this for 50 years.”

He is selling more than 100 horses at his Strawberry Hill Stud including foals, mares, yearlings and racehorses as well as his Mount White home where they are based for more than $100 million.

“It has been one hell of a ride,” Singo said of his racing career that has featured some outstanding gallopers including More Joyous, Strawberry Road and Gypsy Kingdom.

John Singleton at Caulfield Racecourse in February 2022 with jockey Damien Oliver and trainer Gai Waterhouse after his horse Castlereagh Kid won. (Photo by Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images)

“The highs and lows of life all contained in a business where horses run round in a circle,” he said.

The horses will be sold at the end of August with the farm and the five houses on it to follow.

Singo, whose wealth is estimated to be more than $730 million, has been preparing for the move for a while, parting ways with Duncan Grimley, his racing manager of two decades, in February.

“I will keep the horses I have in partnership with other people,” he said.

They include rising star Hawaii Five Oh, which he owns with best mate and Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey.

But after 50 years he said he is no longer interested in the long process of watching the horse win, go to stud and seeing those foals go on to race.

Gerry Harvey and John Singleton at Royal Randwick. Picture Chris Pavlich

“By that time I will be 82 and Gerry will be 100,” he said.

“Gerry sells vacuum cleaners and likes to do the same thing. I like to try something different.”

He will keep Saddles restaurant at Mount White and the luxury Saddles Lodge that long-term friend Michelle Leslie is designing for him. His aviary of macaws will move there.

Leslie also did the interiors for his home in Hawaii where he intended to spend six months of the year because “I hate the cold”.

Michelle Leslie in the corporate box that she designed for John Singleton in the new grandstand at Randwick Race course.

That plan fell over with him selling the luxury seafront house at Lanikai Beach on the east coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, in February 2022, three years after paying $9.3 million for it.

“There was no horse racing, no NRL and no newspapers – what the f*** are you going to do there?” he said.

Despite the failed Hawaiian experiment Singo still intends to “finish up on a beach” and is now looking for an uncrowded spot in Australia.

“I need acreage and a beachfront,” he said.

“Not in Byron Bay, which is worse than Sydney, but probably somewhere on the Central Coast.”

The six times married former ad man and radio and television entrepreneur recently split with girlfriend Kim Dennis, who took care of him after a heart episode in 2021, and has a new flame although he was reluctant to go into details.

“I will not be on the beach on my own,” he said.