Constructing thoroughbred breeding landscapes: Manufactured idylls in the Upper Hunter Region of Australia

Thoroughbred breeding landscapes are highly constructed sites of consumption, work and branding. They are also sites of risk reduction for valued, and very valuable, horses that are both animal and commodity. This chapter explores these constructed landscapes in Australia’s main thoroughbred breeding region, the Upper Hunter region, which is about a three and one-half hour drive northwest of Sydney. The chapter explores the notion of landscape at the farm/stud level and identifies four types of landscapes: rural idyll, landscapes of conspicuous consumption, brandscapes, and landscapes of work. The chapter also explores the use of landscape as a planning instrument in an attempt to reduce conflicts between competing land uses at the local and regional scales. It concludes that these landscapes cannot be de-linked from the political-economy that created them and to which they contribute.