More than six decades of breeding Arabian horses started with savings from needlework and a Corn Flakes competition.
Phyllis Hopf has just finished up 66 years of breeding Arabian horses with her stud Farleigh, in December 2024.
“I love my horses, it’s an interest,” she said.
On 26 January 2025, Mrs Hopf was honored with an Order of Australia award for her service to the Goomeri community, a Gympie-South Burnett border town.
The 89-and-a-half-year-old woman’s sitting room is filled with awards from her days of horse breeding and racing, stitchwork and even a few mementos from her dog racing.
Each item tells part of the story of the respected lady she is today.
Mrs Hopf grew up on a dairy farm at South Nanango, learning how to do hard farm work from a young age.
Inheriting her mother’s love for the show society, Mrs Hopf started volunteering with the Nanango Show Society before she was 17.
She took on roles such as needlework Chief Steward, and entered into cooking and needlework sections.
“I did a lot of show cooking, all these cake stands and fruit stands and a lot of the trophies around [my home] are all cooking trophies for prize money,” Mrs Hopf said.
She eagerly saved up this prize money and her earnings from her needlework with one goal in mind -Arabian horses.
“I put everything I earnt away to buy horses,” she said.
During the late 1950s in a Women’s Weekly, Mrs Hopf discovered a big needlework competition run by Kelloggs’ Corn Flakes.
She entered six pieces and came home with five prizes. Her prize-winning needlework pieces were included in a year-long exhibition tour around Australia to different art galleries
By 1958, when she was living with her first husband Don on another Nanango farm, Mrs Hopf bought her first purebred mare for 300 pounds, naming her Darribee Blue Diamond.
She later moved from Nanango to a property at Cinnabar, outside of Goomeri, when she married her second husband Alan Hopf.
Mrs Hopf moved her horse stud over from Nanango, which included about eight stud-worthy horses.
“That’s where the horse stud really flourished, I was allowed to bring my horses with me and we bred Farleigh Stud Arabian horses,” she said.
Mrs Hopf looked after her own horses in between her farm and house duties.
She became enthralled by the beauty of the ‘absolutely magnificent’ Arabian breed.
“My idea was to set out to breed the Arabian horse like they should be,” she said.
“The confirmation is that it has a beautiful, strong hind quarter -that’s what my horses ended up with.”
She spent decades patiently breeding the best out of her horses, building a strong confirmation.
“They are beautiful horses to look at, mine in particular have wonderful temperament… I bred especially for temperament,” she said.
Her original mare became the core of many generations of Arabian horses over 66 years.
“The whole of my stud -every horse that I bred through were either her sons or her daughters, every one of these goes back to her,” she said.
She only introduced new stallions to her breeding program.
“I’d say I was the only one in Australia, probably in the world, that has done that,” she said.
“I’ve bred a few hundred pure-bred Arabians, I’ve got horses all over the world.”
She now has friends taking care of her horses. Her stallion has been showing for five years in a row now and has not lost in a show.
“He’s kept himself in dust rugs -every year when he wins he gets a rug,” she said.
When she retired from the land in 2004 after her second husband Alan’s death, Mrs Hopf made a conscious decision to be actively involved in her community.
She moved from the big property to a townhouse in Goomeri and spent a few tough months adjusting to town life.
Mrs Hopf did not want to be like her father who quickly ‘deteriorated’ sitting in his chair after he retired, and forced herself to get involved in town.
“The more I joined in, the more pleasure I got out of it,” she said.
“At one stage I was involved in about 16 organisations and president of about seven.”
The OAM award recognised Mrs Hopf’s time volunteering in Goomeri with one of many community organisations from the Goomeri Show Society and SES, to the RSL, garden club, Goomeri Hall of Memory and the Anglican Ladies Guild.
She has also been the beloved patron of the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival for close to a decade now, has given generously as a volunteer since 1997, a former committee member and an annual sponsor.
Mrs Hopf also helps organise lunches at the Goomeri Hall of Memory for the over 50s.
“It gets them out among people and that’s my idea of living a bit longer, because that’s what I’ve had to do for myself to get myself out of a rut,” she said.
Over the coming months Mrs Hopf will travel to Queensland’s Government House to officially receive her OAM award.
