Amberley Park History

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Doncaster 1945

Lower Plenty 1954

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hainsworth T Cock first started breeding cattle in 1945 at what is now the suburb of Doncaster, Melbourne. The homestead used to be the last stagecoach stop before the City of Melbourne and still exists in Amberley Crescent. Here Hainsworth T. formed the Teraveta Ayrshire Stud.

1954 saw the purchase of the beautiful Yarra River farm: "Amberley Park " situated just over the hill from "Teraveta" at Lower Plenty. 1962 was the establishment of the renowned Amberley Park Galloway herd.

Amberley Park Shorthorns where introduced in 1966 and where used in our beef and dairy herds. This proved very successful for producing F1 females and winning carcasses crossing with the Galloways. 

As the Amberley Park Beef herd expanded we looked for more land and after a long search the commercial beef operation moved to the Snowy River country, Buchan in 1969. The AP Stud operation also moved to Buchan  in 1975.

Malcolm & Carol Cock managed the operations at Buchan with the herds building up to over 400 stud Galloway females and nearly 100 Shorthorn females. From Buchan, stock have been sold to all States of Australia and genetics overseas. Our Blueroans constantly topped the markets.

Buchan Black breeding program was developed to meet the market demand for good black poll cattle and has proved very successful.

2006 the Cock Family sold the Amberley Park Buchan operation. Malcolm & Carol and the Amberley Park Studs  moved to Hallston in South Gippsland.

See below the history of Amberley Park Galloways and Shorthorns

 

  

Buchan 1969

 

 

Hallston 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Amberley Park Galloway History

After studying many breeds, Hainsworth T Cock became convinced that Galloways had the best attributes of all the breeds, because they had `the natural ability to survive and produce a top quality product’. In 1962, he founded the Amberley Park Stud (Victoria's first) near Melbourne, with animals from the Garnock, Coward, Kater and Willis families, and then on 2500 acres on Buchan’s limestone hills adjoining the Snowy River. Since 1975 the Stud has been managed by son,  Malcolm Cock

 

Bukalong Duncan (and friend Peg) a foundation sire at Amberley Park: produced great females and carcass qualities.

In 1968 AP imported two bulls from New Zealand, Fork Farm Loyalist & Midas, followed by the entire Fork Farm herd of 40 females in 1971. Later AP purchased the majority of the Hillsmeade and Riverview herds.

                                                       Globe Magnet (Imp Canada)

                                Diamond B Monarch 14M (Imp Canada)

The search for top Galloway genetics and the need to keep the Galloway gene pool as diverse as possible meant looking overseas again - AP imported Diamond B Monarch 14M from Canada in 1982, and semen from North America and Scotland.  Upon HTC's death the Amberley Park herd numbered approximately 400 fullblood Galloway females!

AP advocated natural conditions as far as possible, with minimum interference. The most valued animals are `long, thick and deep, with great foraging ability, good maternal characteristics, quite cattle with a soft skin and coat’. 

Amberley Park's show career spaned over 30 years with many Royal Show and other championships including interbreed  wins. The shows where a good way of promoting AP & Galloways but as the beef industry changed from subjective options to objective measurement, AP stopped showing and concentrated on producing cattle for the commercial beef industry. AP 's principal Malcolm Cock still enjoys judging at shows and carcass competitions but AP's cattle stay producing in the paddock.

Highlights of AP's show career include the Galloway Centenary Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Trophy (AP Impact) & Most Successful Exhibitor at the Royal Melbourne Show in 1977...   the biggest showing of Galloways in the Southern Hemisphere.

At the Canberra Royal Show when Galloways were the  Feature Breed in 1975, AP won 12 out of 13 trophies and retained the All breeds Perpetual Trophy for life by winning it 3 years in a row. Many carcass champions including the Borthwick Trophy for 3 consecutive years.

    Amberley Park Impact

Fertility and growth rates are highly important to our clients, so objective measurement has been used at Amberley Park with cattle being performance recorded since 1965. AP's long history of performance recording is constantly tested in grazing trials and carcass competitions, selling over the hooks and feedlot trials. Feedback from our clients is also a major source of  data to utilize in assisting AP's breeding program.