Millions vow by Bowditch
HOMEGROWN bloodstock guru Barry Bowditch has vowed to make Magic Millions “bigger and better” as he steps into Vin Cox’s managing director role next week.
Bowditch has been anointed by Cox and owner Gerry Harvey to take over the head role at Magic Millions, with Cox leaving after seven years to be the head of Godolphin in Australia.
Bowditch helped his father, trainer Barry Sr, in the stable from a young age, but his family always wanted him to try something different.
“Once I finished Grade 12, I was still helping Dad in the stable. But my parents couldn’t see a future in that,” he said.
Soon after he was given an opportunity to be a pedigree consultant for William Inglis.
Five years later, in 2005, he was lured back home to the Gold Coast by David Chester as a bloodstock consultant for Magic Millions.
He became bloodstock manager in 2013 and has worked closely with Cox, who he met when they worked together at Inglis.
“Once Vin started at Magic Millions he was a great mentor to me,” Bowditch said.
“He gave me the strength to move forward. With that came responsibility and a bit of success too. With the sales in the last five years we’ve gone from $65 million to nearly $150 million.
“All the key vendors give us key horses now. When I first started that was a massive battle.”
Bowditch feels the fundamentals are in place to build on what Cox has achieved with owners Gerry Harvey and Katie Page in recent times.
“We have to keep getting better, we’re not resting on our laurels. We will keep tweaking things and make it bigger and better,” he said.
“But when the fundamentals are as good as they are here, you don’t need to go and reinvent the wheel.”
Cox said the Godolphin job “came out of the blue” so he hadn’t groomed Bowditch for the role, but says he’s clearly the right person for it.
“He bounced into the office and he had that X-factor,” he said.