Ultra Tune boss Sean Buckley, his chance encounter with Tony Mokbel and fractured friendships

Ultra Tune boss Sean Buckley, Tony Mokbel, three fallouts and a racing storm.

Strikeline, one of the horses involved in a breeding investigation.

Sean Buckley shared passions with the balding man from whose farm he was buying.

The stocky land owner had a way about him. Some would call it charisma.

The Kilmore farm, 60km north of Melbourne, would become Buckley’s field of dreams — a prime horse facility in prime horse country.

It was time for his new acquaintance, Tony Mokbel, to offload this pretty property.

By 2004, the head once full of hair had turned bare.

So while he sold his farm to the ever-young Buckley, Mokbel made visits to the Ultra Tune boss’s hair restoration clinic.

It was, sadly, to no avail. The stresses of a drug-fuelled gangland war had made Mokbel’s head a barren landscape.

Mokbel sold his farm to Sean Buckley and sought hair replacement treatment from his company.

Ultra Tune boss Sean Buckley said his meeting with Mokbel was a chance and innocent encounter.

It forced ‘’Fat’’ Tony, two years later, to don a wig as he fled the country on a yacht.

But Buckley could explain his proximity to Mokbel.

In a 2007 television interview, the entrepreneur described their relationship as “innocent’’.

“I bought a farm off him …,’’ he told the program.

“He then went to my hair studio a couple of months later. I met him one month later. He started getting hair treatment.’’

They enjoyed similar indulgences which came with the trappings of wealth.

Flash cars, buxom women, punting and champion thoroughbreds were among them.

Today, Buckley’s stud farm, Barree, is still based near Kilmore and is home to Ultra Thoroughbreds.

He has had enviable success in horse racing as the owner of bona fide stars Miss Andretti and Shamus Award, the 2013 Cox Plate winner.

As a breeder he produced crack sprinter Nature Strip, bred at his Golden Grove Stud in NSW and now the 2019-2020 Australian Horse of the Year.

Mr Buckley’s breeding service produced Australian Horse of the Year Nature Strip. Picture: Getty Images

Last week Buckley’s horse breeding operation came under scrutiny.

Racing Victoria stewards acted on a tip-off given to them by Buckley’s former Ultra Thoroughbreds general manager, Anthony Swords.

The one-time bodyguard to the stars, who with Buckley’s ex-girlfriend had already sparked a police investigation into the Ultra Tune boss over the contents of a covert recording, gave Racing Victoria some juicy information.

Ultra Thoroughbreds, he alleged, has been running a surrogacy program to breed foals from the embryos of champion sprinter Miss Andretti and Strikeline, mother of Nature Strip.

Swords declared that embryos from both mares had been transferred to surrogate mares to carry to birth.

He handed stewards ultrasound photos and text messages.

Anthony Swords is a former employee of Mr Buckley. Picture: Wayne Taylor

They purportedly show a veterinarian’s involvement in the scheme.

“Glad to say that Strikeline has read the textbook this cycle,’’ the message reads.

“I have done a split AI 6hrs before and during ovulation. The rest is up to her. I have two mares in synchrony so as well as it can be here.

“Let you know in just over a week if we recover an embryo.

“Andretti still holding a HF but hope to see it move this week and will time nicely with other recips.’’

The word “recips’’ means mare recipients.

Three foals, according to Swords, were born.

He claims one of two foals from Miss Andretti, a colt, was euthanised to protect the scheme.

Under thoroughbred racing rules, a horse must be produced naturally from conception to birth.

It is a sport built on bloodlines and any deviation, including embryo transfer, is considered a serious breach.

If a thoroughbred is to be raced, it must be registered in the Australian Stud Book.

But, as Buckley explains, neither foal was.

Buckley has openly stated he will co-operate with Racing Victoria’s probe, but says the investigation is the result of a disgruntled employee’s campaign to discredit him.

Miss Andretti during her racing days.

“It’s all nonsense,’’ he said.

“I made two polo ponies.

“They were not registered in the studbook.

“If they were registered, that would not be legal.’’

It raises the question, however, of why anyone would use Miss Andretti or Strikeline to breed polo ponies?

Swords claims there was an intention to race the foals and has handed over texts to prove the conspiracy.

“We should race this horse together,’’ a text message purportedly from Buckley reads.

But the split between Buckley and Swords is personal.

Although it involves disagreements over work, central to their fight is the breakdown of their relationships with their partners.

As Buckley’s relationship with bikini model Jennifer Cole fell apart, so did Swords’ relationship with his partner — who works as an Ultra Thoroughbred trainer at the Barree stud farm near Kilmore.

Swords paints a picture of a meddling boss.

For more than two years Swords had been Buckley’s right hand man, but the rapport was shattered.

Swords says he was distressed by what was expected of him as a manager, including being deployed as a spy to check-up on Cole.

Cole, herself, was a dab hand at covert work.

Not only had she chased away a stealthy technician planting bugs in her apartment, she recorded conversations with Buckley on her mobile phone over a 16-month period.

One recording, allegedly taped in a Crown Casino hotel room, depicts violence and threats to kill a third party.

Mr Buckley and then girlfriend Jennifer Cruz Cole.

A section of the “chilling’’ recording was aired in the media this month as Buckley launched Supreme Court action against Cole and Swords to stop the recording being leaked.

It was allegedly recorded in a room within Crown Melbourne, and management promptly banned Buckley from its venues.

Buckley, who acknowledges in his writ that he is a wealthy man, argues he is the victim of a blackmail campaign.

Swords’ big gamble then took a hit.

His mentor, Mick Gatto, was not liking what was transpiring.

On Wednesday, the Carlton identity ordered Swords to shut down Gatto Corporate Solutions — a debt collection firm run by Swords.

Swords’ war on Buckley had rankled big Mick.

“I don’t condone that sort of thing,’’ Gatto told the Herald Sun.

The subtext was that Gatto has a reputation to protect and Swords was no longer going to be allowed to be associated with his name.

It so happens that Buckley has been a supporter and sponsor of Gatto’s great passion, boxing.

Now, Buckley is fighting enemies on multiple fronts.

Buckley was aghast at joining a long list of the sad, often bad, souls banned from Melbourne’s Crown, where he rented a villa.

It was his home away from home when he flew south from his Gold Coast penthouse.

And a nice break from his Surfers Paradise strip club.