Clyde's flying start as Santas prove worth

Throughout the 1940s, rural newspapers regularly ran articles highlighting the latest saleyard triumph of Oxley-bred bullocks in Flemington (Sydney) or Newmarket (Melbourne). Typical was the January 1941 article in The Land headlined ‘Oxley Shorthorns topped fat markets 41 times in 1940’.

It went on to assert that the run of top prices was ‘... a tribute to the type of cattle being used by (Leahy) as well as to the constitution and fattening ability of the Shorthorn under adverse seasonal conditions’. Sometimes, depending on the season, steers were trucked to market direct from “Oxley”. On other occasions they were railed to Forbes for fattening at “Manna Park”, but either way, “Oxley” was credited. 

“Oxley” remained the key NSW cattle breeding base for JJ’s property network until 1949 when it was sold as part of a general winding-down of the ageing pastoralist’s empire.

It was not quite the end of the Leahy association with the Lower Macquarie, as Keith had always regretted his father not buying the “Ringorah South” block when he bought “Oxley”, and after JJ died in 1959, Keith bought this block in his own right.

 But the main “Oxley” property was snapped up by Berawinnia Pastoral Company, an investment vehicle of the Crawford, Moxham and Stalley families, to join a rich portfolio of stations stretching from “Toorale” (where former “Ringorah” owner, Australian Sheep Farms’, came unstuck)  to Queensland and the Riverina.

Leahy had destocked “Oxley” before the settlement, sending most of the cattle to his Forbes properties, and Berawinnia restocked the country with Shorthorns from its other properties.

 In 1959, midway through the Berawinnia occupation of “Oxley”, the homestead erected by the Leahys was destroyed by fire one night, not long after 7000 pounds ($14,000) had been spent on renovations. 

Berawinnia’s managing partner, J.K. Crawford, was in residence at the time, and according to a contemporary newspaper report, “escaped with only his pyjamas” after raising the alarm. 

A new residence was later built on the same site, and today, as “Old Oxley”, is the home of the station’s assistant manager, Angus Campbell.

In 1969 Berawinnia Pastoral Company, by then a portfolio of 14 properties, was bought holus-bolus by British Tobacco Australia (later called Amatil) as part of its 1960s strategy to diversify away from its sun-setting core business of cigarette manufacture.

READ MORE: Reedbed roll-call

 “Oxley” thus became part of Amatil’s Naroo Pastoral Company, which by the late 1970s had grown into a national network of 20 properties across four states.

Naroo’s pastoral inspector throughout the 1970s was Philip Uren, who now lives in retirement in Orange, and remembers well the company’s “Oxley” years. 

He said Naroo had typically run 5000 to 6000 breeders on “Oxley”, and introduced Santa Gertrudis bulls from Longreach to cross with the predominantly Shorthorn females.

Calves were weaned early and trucked to “Steam Plains” in the Riverina to grow out and fatten. 

Many were then bought by Bob Clarke for the Riverstone Meat Company and railed to Sydney. It was on Naroo’s watch, in 1972, that the “Ringorah” homestead block (which also contained the woolshed) was acquired from Fisher and re-amalgamated with “Oxley”.

Fisher took the Ringorah name with him to another property he bought at Cumnock, and his original “Ringorah” was absorbed into “Oxley”. 

Its more centrally located homestead became the manager’s residence and the station’s operational base, replacing as such the former “Oxley” homestead beside the river.

By the late 1970s, having weathered successive crises in wool and cattle markets, Amatil was ready to divest its pastoral portfolio to reinvest in other, less volatile enterprises. 

At the same time another major rural investor with a longer-term vision, Argentina-based John D. Kahlbetzer, was still keen to expand, and he saw the Amatil exit as an opportunity too good to miss.

In 1979 his Twynam Pastoral Company snapped up seven choice Naroo properties. Apart from “Oxley” and neighbouring “Buttabone” in the Macquarie Valley, they included “Jemalong” and “The Mount” at Forbes and “Mungadal” and “Steam Plains” in the Riverina. 

Five years later Twynam also bought the “Ringorah South” subdivision from Keith Leahy (who had been plagued by access problems), thus rebuilding the original “Ringorah” holding to its 1937 dimensions, where it has remained (more or less) to this day.

Phil Uren went across to Twynam as pastoral operations manager, giving him a continued interest in the fortunes, and management direction, of “Oxley”. 

Twynam took over the existing Santa-cross cattle herd on “Oxley”, ramping up the cow numbers to a peak of some 8000 head, and introducing Angus genetics to the existing hybrid breeding mix.

Calves were weaned early and transferred to “Buttabone” to grow out, the heifers then being shifted to nearby “Elengerah” for joining before returning to “Oxley” to calve. Steers were sent to “Boolcarrol” at Wee Waa or “Gunyerwarildi” at Warialda and grown to feeder weights, before being finished at the company’s Gunnee Feedlot near Delungra.

It was during the Twynam ownership era that the “Ringorah” woolshed was destroyed by fire, after embers from a convivial campfire got away one night after everyone had retired.

 The shed had not been used since the Fisher days, when up to the mid-1960s it was still hosting annual shearings of 11,000 sheep.

When Greg Murie, the present manager of “Oxley”, was first posted there as assistant manager for Twynam in 1990 (and later, manager), he found himself in charge of quite a station community. 

Apart from himself, and his wife Toni, there was a cook, a gardener/groom, a book-keeper, three station-hands, four jackaroos and two contractors, all living at or around the homestead.

By the time Twynam sold the property to Clyde Agriculture eight years later as part of a portfolio rejig, the workforce had shrunk to just the manager and two overseers. 

Clyde’s CEO, David Boyd, had long coveted “Oxley” as an addition to his company’s pastoral network, having been told by men whose opinion he valued that it was “the best cattle property in NSW”.

When Twynam offered the property for sale by tender, Boyd lost no time mobilising his bosses at Clyde’s UK-based parent company John Swire and Sons, to launch a bid.

As he tells the story, Clyde had a flying start with its “Oxley” purchase, which included (as a separate transaction) the 8914 head of cattle on the property, all “poor as crows” at the time of inspection, but “mud fat”, thanks to timely flooding, by the time of delivery. “The steer calves that were on the ground at the time of purchase never had a setback and we were able to sell the steers to Cargill still with their milk teeth at Jap Ox weights,” he said.

Boyd had initially intended to run a Hereford herd on “Oxley”, but he changed tack after seeing how well the acclimatised Twynam herd of composites performed, and instead adopted a criss-cross breeding program using Santa and Shorthorn bulls. After an early run of good years, Clyde ran into the noughties drought - “Oxley” received little or no flooding from 2001 to 2007 - but in better times it typically ran 4500 cows, with the steers being either fattened there or transferred to “Wingadee” at Coonamble.

Boyd stepped down as Clyde’s boss in 2008, to be replaced by John McKillop and a changed agenda, as John Swire and Sons went cold on antipodean pastoral investment and began to sell off its properties. “Oxley” was one of the last to go, bought in 2011 by Macquarie Bank’s Paraway Pastoral Company in a bulk deal worth close to $50 million with “Merrimba” at Warren and “Pier Pier” at Coonamble.

The average tenure of the previous three corporate owners of “Oxley” has been about 15 years, so time will tell how Paraway compares as a long-term owner. But if David Boyd’s recollections hold true - of an eight-plus per cent return on investment in normal seasons, not including capital gain - then Paraway could be there for the long haul.