Macedon Lodge say their decision to terminate the contract of John Symons and Sheila Laxon was nothing personal but ‘’a straight business decision’’, explaining future plans and staffing battles also played a part.
Macedon Lodge’s Michael Dixon told Betsy that one challenge under John and Sheila was having staff commit to their training system, an issue he said had been resolved since new trainer Sara Ryan was appointed.
Dixon also strongly denied any suggestion the business was in any financial difficulty, explaining Macedon Lodge’s finances ‘’couldn’t be any healthier’’ and that the operation has ‘’got a fair bit of capital behind us’’ after recently investing more than $10 million in expanding their operations.
Macedon Lodge was made famous by businessman and prolific owner Lloyd Williams, who has owned the most Melbourne Cup winners. The Dixon family, who owned a very successful entertainment empire, bought the complex in 2023.
‘We’ve looked to the future’
Dixon told Betsy the appointment of the highly regarded Ryan was discussed with John and Sheila but it became clear the facility was better suited to one trainer.
‘’It’s simply looking for the best interest of the owners. We’ve got to be looking to the future, Macedon Racing and Macedon Lodge,’’ Dixon said of the decision to move on from John and Sheila.
‘’John and Sheila have done a great job, just getting everything up and rolling, but just straight from a business point of view and from a strategic point of view, we’ve looked to the future and Sara Ryan, she speaks for herself.
‘’She’s one of the best, if not the best, young trainers coming through the system and she’s really hit the ground running and we appointed her as head trainer about a month ago and look, she’s impressed us so much in the first month that we made the decision just to give her the full rein, no pun intended.
‘’It’s something we’ve talked about with John and Sheila over the past sort of couple of months. And at the start, it was a system that we thought could work having that sort of split system.
‘’But as that sort of first few weeks went on, it became a little bit more obvious that Macedon’s really suited to that one head trainer. For our model that we’re running, certainly, so there’s nothing personal to John and Sheila.’’
‘It’s nothing personal’
Dixon said one key reason to appoint Ryan was part of Macedon Lodge’s plans over the next decade.
‘’It’s nothing personal. It’s a straight business decision, and one that we think is best for our owners as well the horses,’’ he said.
‘’They’ve been around for a long time now, and look, they’ve done a great job.
‘’But certainly when we’re looking towards the future, and you know, we’re buying yearlings and two-year -olds, we want to have a trainer that’s going to be there for the next sort of three, five, ten years, and we can really set these young ones up. So that’s really what the decision was behind it.’’
Dixon said staffing too was an area of concern for Macedon Lodge, a situation he said has already improved since Ryan’s arrival.
”We’d struggled with some staff under John and Sheila, I won’t lie, that was probably one of our bigger problems having staff commit under their training system. It’s been the opposite with Sarah. We’ve been inundated. We’re actually over rostered,’’ he said.
‘’It has been one of the biggest challenges. We had our challenges under John and Shelia with that. But on the flip side with Sarah, we’ve got so many good staff, even some coming back from the Lloyd Williams era.
‘’So we’ve just hired another foreman, who was a foreman for Lloyd Williams, and we’ve got such a strong team now under there, and it’s looking really good.’
‘We’ve got a fair bit of capital behind us’
Dixon was strong in rejecting any assertion that Macedon Lodge is not financially secure. He said the decision to hire Ryan was strategic, not financial.
‘’It couldn’t be any healthier. We’ve got a fair bit of capital behind us, so look, there’s never going to be any issues with that, and we’ve always made the conscious decision of baby steps,’’ he said.
‘’We bought 24 yearlings at the last sales, and we’re growing along. The first year or two was always just finding our feet, working out a plan and strategic outline that suited the model best, and that hints at why we’ve gone with Sarah.
‘’And you know it’s a great coup for us to have such a good young trainer, and you know we’ve found that model and it works really well. And we’ll keep building. Certainly from a financial point of view, it’s you know it couldn’t be any better.’’
‘We’ve put in another $8 million of capital in the last twelve months’
Macedon Lodge has recently finished the construction of 60 new boxes, and have plans for 60 more.
Dixon said that breeding giants Yulong visited their facility this week and compared it to some of the best they have seen.
‘’We had the great pleasure of hosting Yulong yesterday as well,’’ he said.
‘’The boys from Yulong who obviously have seen the world’s best, have said this is up there with any of the best in the world. We’re really chuffed and proud of it.
‘’We just we’ve just put $2.5 million into 60 more boxes there, and we’ve got we’ve got a DA [development application] for the exact same mirrored model, so another 60 boxes, and we’ve just added another water walker and two more treadmills,’’ he said.
‘’So we’ve put in another $8 million of capital in the last twelve months, so it’s a big investment. We’re not going to invest that much capital into a business if we didn’t think it was going to be viable.
‘’I’m more than happy to clear up any questions because you know better than anyone that there’s people out there that would like to say some different things and have their own opinions, but to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, I’m happy to tell you.’’
Eyes on Knight’s Watch
Those with horses with Macedon Lodge now face the decision to either transfer to Ryan or find another trainer.
Communication was sent to some owners during the week in an attempt to sort through what was next for some horses.
Dixon said there is a small number of owners with partnership agreements that either will transfer to Ryan or potentially be forced to be sold.
The most high-profile horse whose future is being worked through is Melbourne Cup winner Knight’s Choice. It is understood the gelding will remain in the care of John and Sheila.
‘’We own a majority of all of our two-year-olds anyway. There’s only a few that aren’t under majority Macedon-controlled,’’ Dixon said.
‘’It’s more about the ones under current training. Some of the older horses that were under John and Sheila’s care, they’ve got 24, I think it was, and 12 have already moved across to Sara from the owners.
‘’So they’re more than happy to stay in Macedon and transfer over to Sarah. We’re talking about … two or three horses there that some of the owners, friends and family of John and Sheila, and we’ve always said that the horses are owned by their owners.
‘’So if the horses are owned outright or they have a majority … and they want it moved, then no hard feelings. That’s life. Move on. And they’re happy to pick up the horse whenever they want.
‘’If there are disputes or resolutions in any of those where there’s multiple owners in horses, then the only fair way is to list them online, and that’s guided by RVL guidelines.”
Ryan ‘second to none’
Ryan came to Macedon Lodge well-respected, a view that the business says has only grown since her arrival.
‘’She’s not only got the skills as a trainer, but her work ethic is second to none, and her communication with owners is second to none,’’ Dixon said.
‘’She’s got that drive, and in the last month, just seeing her out there at four in the morning riding her own horses, and she’ll never ask any of her staff to do anything that she won’t.’’
