The next level: Jack Bruce ready to take Queensland by storm from new Eagle Farm base

Jack Bruce has patiently waited three years for metropolitan stables, and on Wednesday, he finally moved in to his new digs at Eagle Farm. He sat down with TTR to discuss carving his own niche in the Sunshine State, taking the business to new heights, and how a university education set him up for success.

In November, Queensland trainer Jack Bruce announced he had been granted 15 stables at Eagle Farm and on Wednesday, he turned the key on the facility that would finally give him a foothold in the beating heart of Brisbane’s metropolitan racing scene. After three seasons splitting his stable between the Sunshine Coast and Deagon, it’s time to take his operations to the next level.

A foot in the door

The excitement in the Bruce camp is palpable.

“It's a great achievement for the stable to get boxes in the heart of metropolitan Brisbane and I can't wait to get started,” Bruce told TTR this week as he finalised his preparations to say goodbye to his Sunshine Coast stabling and move into Eagle Farm. He will retain his Deagon facility for the time being.

Bruce has been keen on stables at Eagle Farm from the start, but so far, his applications have only been rebuffed. It was only recently that he made any progress - around the same time as Bruce broke through the threshold of 200 career victories.

“I've always applied for boxes there and it was probably only a couple of months ago when (Brisbane Racing Club Executive General Manager - Commercial and Racing) Matt Rudolph phoned me to say that I should be continuing my application,” Bruce said. “Then I was approached to be told that there was a vacancy coming up with 15 stables that I could be allocated, should I wish, and I said yes.”

Bruce jumped at the opportunity to secure stabling vacated by Annabel and Rob Archibald, and while it is a much smaller allocation than the barn he will be leaving at the Sunshine Coast’s track, the location makes it all the more desirable.

“I’m cutting back to 15 at Eagle Farm, but obviously it's these things you've got to do. It's progress and it's all about the future of the business. We have to be looking forward and not looking over our shoulder in this industry, and while I'll have to take a little bit of a reduction in the number of boxes I have in my disposal, to go into Eagle Farm is most certainly worth doing that. I'm very hopeful that there will be an opportunity for more stalls at Eagle Farm in the near future.”

The right kind of foundation

Bruce finished the 2024/25 season inside the top 20 trainers in Queensland with 52 wins - more than Chris Waller achieved in the state despite sending out 111 more runners, and also more than interstate powerhouse Ciaron Maher. By prize money, he sat at 11th spot. It’s exceptional going for a trainer only three years into his career.

“I wanted to get a win per box last season, and I achieved that,” said Bruce.

It’s probably not surprising to see Bruce rise through the ranks so quickly, given his impressive resume. After attending university for a double degree in Accounting, Finance and Economics, he embarked on the Godolphin Flying Start, which assisted him in landing the job of Racing Manager for fellow Kiwi Bjorn Baker upon completion. Before taking out his trainers’ licence in 2022, he further honed his craft in the stables of Waller and Maher.

His time at university has proved invaluable in his journey as a trainer - although Bruce was realistic enough to point out that he possibly doesn’t use the finer points of his degrees on a day to day basis.

“I think my university experience was such that, even if I don't use the exact teachings day to day, it was about (developing) the ability to learn and the ability to apply yourself,” he said. “I moved away from home at the end of highschool to go to university, there were a lot of life experiences that I had as part of that at a younger age than probably what I see most young people doing at the present time, and I think those experiences have really assisted me.

“I've learned that the learning process never stops. You finish school and you think you've conquered the world, but you haven't. You go to university and there's a whole series of new challenges, and life is about being able to manage and handle those challenges in a cool, calm, and collected way. If you can nail that, everything seems to flow from there.”

The Flying Start and his time under Baker, Waller, and Maher have only assisted Bruce in building on the rock solid foundation he established at university.

“I think that those principles apply to horse training in general,” he said. “Separate from the horse skills I've learned from those I've worked for, is the ability to manage your business, manage staff, manage different situations you find yourself in, and I think my university experience and my time on the Godolphin Flying Start have been crucial in developing those skills.”

While being a trainer wasn’t what Bruce envisaged when embarking on his university journey, it has given him many of the tools to rise through the trainers ranks as swiftly as he has done.

“There'd always be plenty of people to prove me wrong, but I am glad that I did it,” he said. “I didn’t approach adult life thinking I would train horses for a living, but I have always been interested in it, and once I got to Bjorn Baker’s stables in Sydney, I became so enthusiastic about it. I loved Sydney racing and it got to the point where I just couldn't see myself doing anything else.

“Racing is a bug, and it certainly bit me. My university education has done me no harm and it's given me a well-rounded skill base that I do think is important for training in the modern day.”

Opportunity knocks

For Bruce, the draw to kicking off his training career in Queensland was pretty simple; here was a place where he could carve out his own niche, without competing with the established top level stables that dominate the Sydney racing scene. The money in Queensland was good, the racing program consistent and diverse, and young talent had a chance of muscling in on a slice of the pie.

“I think when you start training, the hardest part is to get given horses and for someone to give you a go, and you need those opportunities in order to prove what you can do,” said Bruce. “I developed good contacts in Sydney, and I've had a lot of help in my journey along the way, but setting up shop next to them and competing directly with them was probably not going to be the best business decision at the time.”

The move to Queensland also meant that Bruce could continue to benefit from the support of his former mentors, without the concern that he could be attempting to directly compete with them (yet, anyway).

“All my former bosses in Sydney have at one stage or another recommended that a horse that may no longer be up to metropolitan racing in Sydney come to my stable and have a go,” Bruce said. “Some have come up with the same ownership interests and been able to win a couple of extra races in Queensland. That's obviously helped build my profile in terms of winners and also helps cement those relationships that I've had.

“It's great to be training horses for people who I knew 10 years ago in Sydney, and that's also led to developing some new clients along the way. My former employers have all been supportive, and at the end of the day, when you start training, that’s what you need.”

And being in the heart of Queensland’s racing puts him in prime position to run horses in the state’s biggest and best races.

“I have always viewed Queensland as a state that raced for good prize money and had some very vibrant carnivals in the wintertime and summertime,” said Bruce. “People want to race their horses in Queensland, they want to race youngstock in Queensland and they want to race their tried horses in Queensland too. The prize money is good and the racing is great. So by coming north, I was by no means moving away to Timbuktu, I was trying to find a niche and a home for myself.”

The long-term game

The aim from here is to increase the quantity of wins on metropolitan tracks - and the new facility provides a perfect stepping stone to getting the right horses into his stables.

“I'm always happy to try and take a horse where I can win, and do the right thing by an ownership group that's given me an opportunity with a horse,” Bruce said. “But, as you can imagine, the long-term game is to be racing metropolitan class horses in the metropolitan area for metropolitan prize money. That's where the money is and that's where the premier racing is in Brisbane, and I want to be part of that and racing horses for the good Saturday and Wednesday prize money we have in Brisbane.

“That's the focus moving forward. Obviously you can't run them all in town, and some horses run at the country and provincial races to build experience and gain their confidence, but at the end of the day we all want to be racing in the city, and I'm hoping that by getting boxes at Eagle Farm it might facilitate that for my stable.”

Tried horses, which have been the “bread and butter” of both Bruce’s stable and the local racing scene, remain on the agenda, but Bruce also looks forward to increasing his investment in youngstock at next year’s sales circuit.

“There's a lot of tried horses that come to Brisbane to race and I'll always be looking to source those sorts of horses for the stable,” he said. “They can be good money spinners and good fun here. It remains a central focus of the stable.

“I’d like to develop my youngstock too. I think my next good horse is going to come from an untried horse - it's going to come from a yearling that I buy at the sales or I am given to train. For example, I have a runner in the G3 Grand Prix Stakes at Eagle Farm on Saturday that I bought at Magic Millions last year. Developing that flow of youngstock into the stable is something that's really important going forward.”

Highgrove Rose (King’s Legacy) broke through at her most recent start at the Sunshine Coast, but has shown a twinkle of black-type talent before, running twice at Listed grade as a 2-year-old after running third at metropolitan level on debut.

“However Highgrove Rose goes on Saturday, that’s the new benchmark for the stable, developing these young horses into stakes horses,” Bruce said. “I have had some good luck with young horses so far - another one being Mr Bubbaluski, who I bought for a modest sum of $50,000 and he ran second in the QTIS Jewel in March. The next phase of the business is to keep developing more of these types.

“All the major yearlings sales are a focus point, and I want to walk away from those sales with youngstock with potential. Then it's just up to me to develop them and ensure that they can achieve their full potential.”

Bruce hopes that being based in the city properly will turn a few more heads in his direction when he hits the sales next year.

“We're looking to grow the stable,” he said. “We're looking to give clients a good experience. We want owners to enjoy racing as much as we do, and hopefully if we can facilitate that for people and the results keep coming, then it grows organically from there.”

Original article published on The Thoroughbred Report, 19th December 2025 - https://www.ttrausnz.com.au/edition/2025-12-19/the-next-level-jack-bruce-ready-to-take-queensland-by-storm-from-new-eagle-farm-base