Farm of the Week: Yorkshire trainer's son whose haylage is in demand from racing yards

Yorkshire Bale Haylage is Tom’s business, run from the farm that is also home to Simon Whitaker Racing that last year saw the stable with 11 wins and 39 places from its 104 entries. Tom knows what he’s doing, marketing a product just at the time when other trainers may well be asking his father, ‘what are you feeding your horses?’

“We make a lot of hay and haylage,” said Tom from the family’s Hellwood Farm where Simon has a string of 20 horses in training. “We are focussed mainly on the racehorse market, making a premium product to get a premium price in a niche market, and I’m shamelessly using dad as the foot-in-the-door. He knows all the right people.

“We only grow grass on the farm. It’s not suited to arable cropping as it is clay soil, has small fields, all hedges and grass.

“The one thing that no farmer can control is the weather and when you’re making haylage it is so important that it is right. Fortunately, we’ve been blessed with fabulous weather the last couple of years, with decent dry weather spells.

“Dry weather doesn’t suit every farmer. Our clay land has probably suited us more so than those who had wetter weather as our yields haven’t been as poor as some have experienced. But we do have some lighter land where it droughts off a bit quicker. Overall, we’ve been blessed and that has helped establish our Yorkshire Bale Haylage brand.

“We are looking to deliver wagon loads of quality haylage to racehorse yards as that makes greater business sense and it is certainly working out that way. We had a great order the other day from a racehorse trainer who had tried a sample, loved it and came back later with a call ordering a wagon load.

After studying at Askham Bryan College and the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester Tom spent five and a half years in Australia, latterly working on a 20,000 acre farm near West Wyalong for three and half years, two hours north of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales where he managed a contracting team of 10 men.

“I’d recommend anybody to do it when you’re young, especially if you love farming. We were arable farming and had six combines running. There were lots of headaches, breakdowns, hours and tiredness, but overall it is probably an easier life out there. I came back because I’d decided I didn’t want to farm in the middle of nowhere.

Farming in Scarcroft couldn’t be more different. Gentle rolling hills, no cereal crop in sight and a farm that runs to just 150 acres, largely in two blocks. Tom said he knows the farm itself is not enough for him to run it profitably on its own without other incomes, or the haylage business expanding or some other diversified interests.

“That’s where making a premium product could make a difference in the long term, but at present I am only making say 60 per cent of my income from the farm and I’m reliant on other income streams for the rest. We have a small herd of store cattle, which adds to the farm, and I do some work for a local arable farmer; and I’m the shifter, using my pickup to haul stuff around for people. It’s sometimes easier to get work away from the farm, especially during winter.

“We currently have eight cattle. We buy as stores at around 6 months old, which we keep for about a year and sell them as strong stores.

Haylage quality is uppermost in Tom’s mind right now as he seeks to maintain the strong start Yorkshire Bale Haylage has made inside its first four years.

“Quality is everything and for that to be right you have to make sure of the right grasses in the mix, what people like, and those are mainly all different ryegrasses.

“Everyone has such an opinion and sometimes it doesn’t matter what the horse thinks. People make their own choices, so we try to grow something for everybody. One person will want a certain mix because in their eyes it looks the best and then somebody else trying to do the same job will want something totally different. We don’t mind that. It’s their opinion. We just want to create the right alternatives.

“We make our haylage as dry as we can. We are concerned about having the soil just right, having the correct soil analysis, correct pH levels. We aim to re-seed every five years. We don’t have a thing about having to do something a certain way all the time. I wanted to plough last year and it was like concrete and so we ended up discing it out, because the grass had come to the end of its life and we had to do something. There would be no crop the following year if we hadn’t. We put lime on it.

Simon’s 11 wins in 2022 saw his Pontefract serial winner Round The Island notch up his seventh first past the post at the Yorkshire course; saw Billy Roberts win at Ripon and Haydock Park; three winners over two days in August, firstly at Nottingham with Tiberio Force and then a double at Haydock Park with Billy Roberts and Jill Rose; and a double earlier at Catterick in July with Round The Island and Liberty Breeze.

Simon said he has high hopes again this year, of Round The Island becoming the greatest ever winner at Pontefract with an eighth victory; Mythical and Variety Island coming off decent marks; and Billy Roberts and Jill Rose continuing their form. He also has high hopes for Tom.

“I was brought up with horses and cows all my life. We had dairy cows here when I was a boy. I wanted to be a jockey. My dad rode in Pont to Points, trained them and then trained racehorses under rules. I followed him in all of those.

“Tom is now responsible for the farm. My wife Lorraine does everything behind the scenes here and also works at a number of racecourses in Yorkshire looking after the winning owners.

“The farm includes 85 acres at Hellwood and 60 acres of gallops on Bramham Park land, and bits of land to grow hay elsewhere.

“I’m happy to be Tom’s foot in the door for new yards taking Yorkshire Bale Haylage. Adam Nicholls who rode Lady Buttons is now training up at Alnwick. He rang me to ask what was I feeding my horses since they had run well in 2022. We took him a bale of haylage to Wetherby Races and he rang up two days later for a lorry load.