Wallace established Ardsley Stud at Masterton in 1973 and enjoyed top level success across the Tasman with the Forty Winks mare Kip, who won the Gr.1 Australian Cup (2000m).
His domestic highlights included Group One victories with Cent Home in the
Captain Cook Stakes (1600m) and the Kelt Capital Stakes (2040m). He was trained
by his son Jim, who took over the reins at Ardsley.Cent Home was a son of the family's stallion Lord Ballina, whose other leading representatives included Group One winners Lord Tridan, Count Chivas, Royal Magic, Mirror Magic, Showella, Bureaucracy, Balmuse, Acushla Marie, Carson's Cash and Lord Ted.
Wallace also bred and raced another of Lord Ballina's top-flight sons Titch, who was prepared by Kevin Myers to win the Gr.1 Auckland Cup (3200m). The versatile galloper also won three hurdle races in Australia before he claimed the Ellerslie feature.
"He was a long-time racing man before he established the stud. He started the stud when my brother Les and I were both getting involved," Jim Wallace jnr told NZ Racing Desk.
"I was working at Te Parae Stud and Santa Rosa and Les was working for stables in Australia and we came home and set it up, the three of us. Dad was a practicing veterinarian and that funded the set-up.
"He was a massive racing man, rather than a breeding man. He bred a lot of good horses but his primary interest was racing so it was always a battle to get the best yearlings to the sales rather than the racing stable.
"At one time, he would have had 30 or 40 horses in work. He would have been one of the biggest owners of his era."
Jim Wallace snr died last Friday and was laid to rest in a private funeral on Tuesday.
He served in WWII in the 27th machine gun battalion in Italy and Greece and gained his veterinarian degree in Sydney once the war was over.
Wallace's daughter Rosemary is now involved in breeding, co-breeding last week's two-time New Zealand Cup week winner Who Dares Wins, and his grandson Michael has also carved out a successful career in the thoroughbred industry as a prominent bloodstock agent. – NZ Racing Desk
