About ANZ Bloodstock News

ANZ Bloodstock News

Overview

ANZ Bloodstock News is a daily bloodstock and racing news service for the Australia and New Zealand thoroughbred industry, published from Sydney as a morning email edition supported by the website anzbloodstocknews.com. For twenty years it has been one of the industry's fixtures: a subscription newsletter-style publication whose daily edition mixes sales reporting, racing coverage, stallion statistics and commentary for breeders, owners, trainers, agents and bloodstock professionals across Australasia and the wider racing world.

The title changed hands most recently in March 2026, when Charmein Phelan — the Racing Post executive who had run the business as global head of bloodstock for its British owner, Spotlight Sports Group — signed a deal to acquire it, bringing ANZ Bloodstock News under Australian ownership from April 2026. It is a different publication from Sydney's other bloodstock titles: unlike Breednet, an independent results and data website edited by Tara Madgwick, and unlike TTR AusNZ, the King–Leonard daily edition, ANZ Bloodstock News spent most of the past decade inside a British racing media group before its 2026 buyout.

History

Spotlight Sports Group's own announcement of the 2026 sale records that ANZ Bloodstock News "was established 20 years ago", placing its founding in 2006. In its first decade the title was issued by Bloodstock Media Limited — the imprint carried in its daily editions of that era, which presented the publication as a paginated morning newsletter of sales news, results and sire tables, distributed by email to industry subscribers. Through those years it built the format it still uses: a lead story on the day's significant development, reports from the sales grounds, statistical tables of leading sires in Australasia and the major northern hemisphere jurisdictions, and commentary from long-serving columnists.

In 2017 the Racing Post, Britain's racing and sports media group, acquired ANZ Bloodstock News as part of its investment in bloodstock content, as the Racing Post itself recorded when announcing a three-way content-sharing partnership with ANZ Bloodstock News and the American publication BloodHorse in June 2018. Under that partnership, ANZ journalism began appearing on BloodHorse's platforms with joint bylines — writers such as Steve Moran, Tim Rowe, Trevor Marshallsea, Andrew Hawkins and Lewis Lesbirel were credited to ANZ Bloodstock News in BloodHorse coverage of Australian racing and sales — giving the Sydney title a standing distribution channel into the North American market.

In February 2020 the Racing Post Group rebranded itself as Spotlight Sports Group, and ANZ Bloodstock was carried into the new structure as one of the group's four core businesses, alongside the Racing Post itself, the Apsley affiliate division and the ICS content services arm. Charmein Phelan joined the Racing Post in May 2022 as global head of bloodstock and a member of its global leadership team, with responsibility for ANZ Bloodstock News. Following a strategic review at Spotlight Sports Group, and after Phelan had raised her interest in acquiring a business with group chief executive Mark Renshaw in mid-2025, she signed a deal in March 2026 to buy ANZ Bloodstock News herself. The group's announcement, published by ANZ Bloodstock News on 17 March 2026, said the new chapter would take effect from April 2026, with Phelan committing to continuity for clients and readers while enhancing the title's offering.

Content and Coverage

The daily edition is built for the professional reader's morning. Its coverage centres on the bloodstock market: yearling, weanling, broodmare and ready-to-run sales conducted by Inglis, Magic Millions and New Zealand Bloodstock, reported lot by lot at major auctions with analysis of averages, medians, clearance rates and the buyers and vendors behind the headline lots. Sales coverage extends internationally to the Tattersalls, Goffs, Keeneland and Arqana sales that shape Australasian pedigrees and shuttle-stallion decisions.

Alongside the market, ANZ Bloodstock News reports racing itself — Group race previews and reports from Australia, New Zealand and the major international carnivals, including Hong Kong, Royal Ascot and the Breeders' Cup — with particular attention to the breeding implications of results: first stakes winners for young sires, pedigree updates and stallion fee and roster movements at stud farms. Statistical tables of leading sires by earnings, in Australasia and in Britain and Ireland, are a standing feature of the edition, as are industry and policy stories covering racing administration, wagering, welfare and breeding regulation in Australia and New Zealand.

Commentary is part of the title's identity. Steve Moran, one of Australian racing journalism's most experienced voices, has contributed columns to ANZ Bloodstock News over many years, and the title's "The Verdict" series of 2021 — in which journalist Jo McKinnon interviewed industry figures including international bloodstock consultant Mark Player about the state of the market — illustrates its interview-led analysis. The website publishes the edition's stories individually through the day, and in the week this profile was prepared its homepage led with a report of the 2026 Caulfield Cup, won by the Gavin Bedggood-trained Kingswood.

Audience and Reach

ANZ Bloodstock News is written for participants in the commercial thoroughbred industry rather than the general racing fan: breeders and stud farms, owners and syndicators, trainers, bloodstock agents, sales companies and the professional advisers around them, in Australia and New Zealand first and internationally second. Spotlight Sports Group's sale announcement described it as delivering "industry leading news on bloodstock and racing to a global audience" and as "an essential source of news, insight, and commercial intelligence" for its readers — the group's own characterisation of its former title, presented as such.

No audited circulation or subscriber figure for ANZ Bloodstock News is published, and none is asserted here. Its reach is evidenced indirectly: its content partnership placed its journalism on BloodHorse, one of the largest bloodstock platforms in the United States; Thoroughbred Breeders Australia listed it among the media partners of the Australian Thoroughbred industry's national staff awards alongside broadcasters and national racing media; and its buyout in 2026 was transacted at group level by a global racing media business and reported by BloodHorse and Equibase in North America. On acquiring the title, Phelan herself pointed to "an outstanding reputation and an incredibly loyal audience" — the new owner's description, quoted in the group's announcement.

Digital Presence

ANZ Bloodstock News is a digital-native publication. Its primary product is the daily edition delivered to subscribers by email, long presented as a formatted, page-numbered newsletter that replicates a newspaper's structure online, and its website at anzbloodstocknews.com publishes the same journalism as individual articles, with an archive reaching back over many years of editions. The site carried current October 2026 racing coverage in the week this profile was prepared, leading with the Caulfield Cup meeting at Caulfield.

The title maintains an active social media presence — its editions have long directed readers to its @ANZ_NEWS handle — and its digital distribution is amplified by the content-sharing arrangements built during the Racing Post era, under which ANZ stories appear on BloodHorse's website with ANZ bylines. Under Phelan's ownership the title has committed to enhancing its offering for "an ever changing market", in her words in the March 2026 announcement, while keeping the daily edition and website at the centre of the service.

Ownership and Organisation

ANZ Bloodstock News is owned by Charmein Phelan, who acquired the business from Spotlight Sports Group under a deal announced on 17 March 2026 and effective from April 2026. Phelan had been with the Racing Post, part of Spotlight Sports Group, since May 2022, serving as its global head of bloodstock and running ANZ Bloodstock News within the group, so the buyout transferred the title from a British media group to the Australian-based executive who had been responsible for it. Her stated intention, in the group's announcement, was to bring the title "under Australian ownership" and to continue it "without disruption to its loyal clients and dedicated readers".

Before the buyout, the ownership chain ran from Bloodstock Media Limited, the publisher named in the title's editions in its first decade, to the Racing Post, which acquired it in 2017; the Racing Post Group became Spotlight Sports Group in February 2020, and ANZ Bloodstock remained one of that group's four businesses until the 2026 sale. The title's newsroom is based in Sydney and works to the Australasian racing calendar, with contributors covering sales and racing in New Zealand and at the major international sales and carnivals. Its bylines over the years — among them Steve Moran, Tim Rowe, Trevor Marshallsea, Lloyd Jackson and Andrew Hawkins — reflect a small, specialist editorial team rather than a general newsroom.

Contact and Availability

ANZ Bloodstock News is published daily at anzbloodstocknews.com, where current stories are available to read and readers can subscribe to the daily email edition; subscription and advertising arrangements continued without disruption under the change of ownership in April 2026, per the new owner's commitment in the sale announcement. Editorial enquiries have historically been directed to editor@anzbloodstocknews.com, an address published in the title's own editions, and advertising contact details are published on the website. The publication is based in Sydney, New South Wales, and covers the Australia and New Zealand thoroughbred industries year-round. No public business email field is recorded for this listing.