Left to right: Greg Willmot and brother Jay Willmot have transformed Kinghaven Farms from a Canadian thoroughbred racehorse mecca to a renewable energy producer, honey producer, egg farmer and – new this year – a greenhouse lettuce grower.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
If you know anything about Canadian thoroughbred horse racing, you know the name Kinghaven Farms and its owner, the Willmot family.
But now, when you walk into the main office at Kinghaven Farms in the rolling hills of King City, Ont. just northwest of Toronto, photos of top race winners such as With Approval, Izvestia and Alydeed share space with jars of honey and flavoured honey spreads and a fridge of freshly cut greenhouse lettuce.
Horse breeding and racing is an unstable and fickle business. As Kinghaven’s chief executive officer – and part of the third generation of Willmots at Kinghaven – Jay Willmot has taken the mantra “innovate or die” to a whole new level with Kinghaven’s transformation from Canadian thoroughbred racehorse mecca to a renewable energy producer, honey producer, egg farmer and – new this year – a greenhouse lettuce grower.
Haven Greens, the farm’s new five-acre, state-of-the-art, automated lettuce greenhouse operation, started producing fresh lettuce in recent weeks just as the “buy Canadian” sentiment gained momentum in reaction to recent U.S. announcements.
The launch came at the right time since Canada imports most of its lettuce from California or Arizona, Jay explains.
‘He could read the writing on the wall’
Kinghaven’s business activities have changed drastically since its inception. Donald “Bud” Willmot, a businessman and former Molson Industries Ltd. chairman, bought the 185-acre Kinghaven Farms in 1967 and started a thoroughbred breeding and racing empire. His son, David, joined his father in his love of horse racing, managing the farm’s racing and breeding programs starting in 1974.
Kinghaven had huge success in the 1980s and 1990s with a slew of homebred horses, including both With Approval and Izvestia winning the Queen’s Plate and Canada’s Triple Crown in 1989 and 1990. The farm won countless awards as top Canadian breeder and owner and at one point owned nearly 200 breeding and racing horses.
David joined Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) as president and CEO from 1995 to 2010, and chairman from 2001 to 2012, revitalizing Woodbine Racetrack into a top-notch North American thoroughbred racing facility by expanding broadcasting and wagering options. But being WEG’s leader meant less time to run his horse breeding and racing operation.
“That was the beginning of the end for our racing success as his focus went to running the track,” Jay says.
The industry was also changing and, in 2004, David announced that Kinghaven Farms would no longer be a breeding facility. While the family still owns some thoroughbred and standardbred horses, Jay says it’s more of a hobby.
“He could read the writing on the wall,” Jay says. “The business was not doing well at that time, and it became readily apparent that we needed to make a course change or else we were not going to be a farm anymore. He was sad, of course, and probably still is.”
The next-generation pivot
Jay, who has degrees in business, environmental science, and law, says he got more involved in the business, “and that’s where we started to reimagine everything that was happening here,” he adds.
In 2021, his father formally tapped him as farm president.
Today, there are solar panels on all the buildings, a growing apiary and food processing operation, a flock of egg-laying chickens in one barn and a massive greenhouse in place of the farm’s covered racetrack. The old racehorse barn has been converted to offices and greenhouse staff facilities.
A leader’s ability to be open-minded and understand the changing business world is vital for a company’s survival from one generation to the next, says Jeffrey Tannenbaum, partner in EY Canada’s private company services group.
David’s “entrepreneurship and his ability to lead people comes through astoundingly in what he did to allow his family to grow and to pivot the business into different directions,” Mr. Tannenbaum says.
It almost didn’t happen.
Someone tried to buy the farm years ago, says Greg Willmot, Jay’s younger brother and vice-president of operations. The buyer didn’t see the value of the newly installed solar panels and the deal didn’t go through.
“The solar panels were, in that moment, the one reason that we kept the farm, and then later became the sort of indirect reason why we started looking at [the greenhouse],” which uses the solar power, says Greg, who focused on being an actor earlier in his career.
He credits Jay for demanding they keep the farm and find a way to make it thrive.
“You introduce new stuff, and first people think you’re funny, and then they think you’re crazy,” Jay says. “It was the same with our first solar project. At first, my dad was like, ‘oh, that’s nice son, way to dream.’ Then I kept doing it. He was like, ‘Oh, you’re serious.’”
Jay says his dad encouraged him to “go out and do your thing,” putting a lot of faith in his decisions.
“Sometimes he puts a little too much faith in me, but it’s probably a good thing, because it means I get to go out and make my own mistakes and try to learn from those,” Jay says.
Greg was director of operations in Chicago for telehealth company Maple as Jay was starting Haven Greens. As Jay got excited about the greenhouse operation, he told Greg all about all the new developments “every step of the way.”
“I started to realize that exciting things were happening at home and maybe I should start to pay more attention and I started getting more involved,” Greg says.
Greg says his skill set is in operations, human resources and building great teams, and he was happy to let Jay take the business-planning lead.
“The bet that he was intending on placing on this ‘lettuce box’ impacted my future as well, so we wanted to make sure that I was brought in before we made any of those choices,” he explains.
“We balance each other well,” Jay adds. “I feel like we’ve got a really good, diverse set of skills sets across the entire team.”
Whether succession is carefully laid out or happens organically, it’s key for families to talk about the future, EY’s Mr. Tannenbaum says.
“Having open and honest communication and getting family members aligned in various different aspects is really what would allow a succession to be successful versus possibly unsuccessful,” he explains.
With this in mind, the brothers are working hard to make Kinghaven Farms successful, Jay says.
“It’s all about continuing to farm and delivering on that mission to provide clean, healthy food to our local communities … and combat food insecurity.”