Street to Pratt: You’ve been in the game for five minutes, mate

He left for Australia in 1986 with $5000, three suitcases and his wife and daughters.

Today Kevin Pratt is one of the powerhouses of North Island racing with tens of millions of dollars of investments in New Zealand and Australia.

And if Five To Midnight or Kamanda Lincoln can win Saturday’s $500,000 Auckland Cup it would climax surely one of the most meteoric rises.

Five To Midnight was beaten “a lip” in last year’s Auckland Cup, despite jockey Opie Bosson being in front of Johnathan Parkes on Ladies First.Pratt admits he’ll be yelling just a little louder for Five To Midnight, who was beaten a lip in last year’s cup - mostly because he owns the horse outright.

But in a way it would be karma should the Kamada Park boss score with Kamanda Lincoln because as the name suggests he races the horse with Lincoln Farms’ John and Lynne Street.

And it was Street who encouraged Pratt to get more involved in racing, crucially selling him land on the outskirts of Palmerston North in 2015 which he has developed into an impressive equestrian property.

Kamanda Lincoln will also be the first Auckland Cup runner John Street has had after a quarter of a century of trying, whereas it will be the fifth year on end Pratt has had a runner, King Kamada also filling the runner-up slot in 2015, run down in the last few metres.

“John keeps reminding me I’ve been in the game only five minutes compared with him,’’ Pratt said during a little light hearted banter in the birdcage at Ellerslie last Saturday after Kamanda Lincoln earned a cup start with a late attacking third in the Nathans Memorial.

Pratt and Street have raced upwards of a dozen horses together over the years, and have six on the go currently, including the classy Lincoln Falls and the appropriately named Pratt Street in Singapore.

But he’d never raced a horse before when he went to the 2011 ready to run sale, specifically to buy one for his younger sister Brenda to cheer her up when she was seriously ill.

King Kamada (Danielle Johnson), the first horse bought by Kevin Pratt, ran second in Rock Diva’s 2015 Auckland Cup. PHOTO: Trish Dunell.Brenda named the $45,000 buy King Kamada and he won his fourth and best race, the Summer Cup at Trentham in January, 2014 just a couple of days before she died. Pratt says the joy he saw on her face watching the win really struck home and was the catalyst for his future investment in the industry.

Incredibly, while the horse won $334,000, and campaigned in Australia, he never won another race after Brenda died, despite having 38 more runs.

Pratt says he’s always loved horses, was once a bit of a punter, and got to meet Street through their trainer Lisa Latta. But it wasn’t until the opportunity came up to buy Street’s property that he really expanded. He jumped at the chance to have his own land as it would allow him to agist his own horses: “I don’t like paying rent.’’

Since then Pratt has doubled the size of the farm to 65 hectares, buying another 18ha last year and sinking all of $10 million into developing Kamada Park into a showplace centre where horses are not only spelled but broken in and pre-trained.

It now has an 800 metre sand track, walker, starting gates, scales and veterinary room where minor surgery can be performed.

“We’ve had up to 125 horses here in the past.’’

Pratt credits the paddocks at Kamada Park with rejuvenating the form of Five To Midnight this season.

“We’ve tried something different with him. He’s a lot more consistent since I decided we should bring him here after every race. He stays for five to seven days and puts on 40 kilos.

The Danny factor

“I call it ‘the Danny factor’ because his stable name is Danny. He can eat grass and kick up his heels rather than being cooped up in a box.

Kamada Park, 65 hectares of horse heaven on the outskirts of Palmerston North.“You don’t put All Blacks in a closet after a game, you let them move and rid their muscles of that lactic acid buildup.’’

So, how did a man who had almost nothing when he moved to Australia end up being retired and able to afford all this?

“I was in the by-products game in Sydney, processing offal,’’ says Pratt.

“We were doing 450 tonnes of offal a day - turning chicken guts, feathers, blood and fish into protein meals and things like cat biscuits.

“I literally turned shit into gold,’’ Pratt jokes.

Eight years ago Pratt sold his shares in the company for “a lot of money” and basically retired.

Now 66, he still has a few businesses in Australia - a shopping centre, cherry farm and chicken farm - “though I don’t know all their names, there are 480,000 of them.’’

Pratt also has property here - $6 million worth in Dunedin alone - and divides his time between New Zealand and Australia where he is based at Wiseman’s Ferry outside Sydney, overlooking the Hawkesbury River.

Pratt says there are two parts to his life now - developing Kamada Park and enjoying racing horses.

Oh, better make that three - he and Margaret have four children and seven grandchildren, plenty to keep them busy.