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History
The main farm house, stables and managers house, Cresta Two, was purchased by Kenneth and Denise Williams in 1998 and renamed TARCOOLA STUD. The main house was completely rebuilt, the stables transformed, the fences completely re-done, and the main lake on the property extended. The name TARCOOLA comes from the racehorse TARCOOLA who won the 1893 Melbourne Cup (as seen on the entrance to Flemington race course).
TARCOOLA was owned & trained by Joseph Cripps and ridden by his 16 year old son, Herbert Cripps. Denise Williams is the great grand daughter of Joseph, hence the Mornington peninsula version of Tarcoola Stud.
Our philosophy is to sell all bred stock to maximize broodmare value.
The broodmare band has slowly increased to 20 mares. Our breeding philosophy centres on thoroughbred genetics (DNA). We have close ties with the Thoroughbred Genetics Ltd in the UK and follow the breeding advice by Dr Steve Harrison.
Blood samples from all of our mares have been sent to the UK for analysis.
Read more history about the Melbourne Cup winner Tarcoola –
from the newspaper of the day, The Argus of 11th of November 1893.
Our main interest is to measure a genetic component called heterozygosity.
This measure determines the true measure of inbreeding, which cannot be identified by pedigree alone. There is an optimal level desirable in mares: an animal too inbred has the danger of harmful inbreeding depression, and too outbred they are likely to be an unreliable breeding prospect.
The above measures, combined with further mtDNA analysis of stallions (incorporating conformation characteristics), allows us to seek out optimal matings. The success of our approach can be noted by observing the high degree of quality thoroughbreds we produce from the relatively small numbers bred from our boutique stud. We boast more stakes-horses and champion horses than might be achieved by mere random success.