Just one of Pine Ridge's illustrious owners

But in 1912, when the inscription was made, it would have told us that buried below was the illustrious trotter, Fritz, who had died that year aged 22 on the property of his owner, J.A. (John) Buckland.

Today it's just another pasture paddock on Pine Ridge, a grazing property of 965 hectares straddling the Coolaburragundy River near its junction with the Talbragar at Leadville, near Dunedoo.

But in its glory days when Pine Ridge was a huge station of more than 18,000ha, this paddock was the trotting track used for training Buckland's stable of top-ranked harness horses.

Of these, none was more renowned than the bay gelding Fritz, bred by Buckland from the imported American stallion Vancleve out of Berlin. He long held the Australasian mile record of 2.13 minutes.

Pine Ridge was gushingly described in a leading journal at the time as 'the biggest and most successful trotting stud south of the Line' (meaning the Equator).

Buckland was by no means the first 'squire' of Pine Ridge, nor the only one of note, but it's he who left the most enduring mark, in the shape of the noble sandstone mansion that still graces the property today.

Pine Ridge is now owned by retired Mudgee stock agent Denis Woods and his wife Helen, who are selling to retire to the Mid-North Coast after an ownership of five years. (The property was featured in our Domain section last week.)

It was previously owned for nearly 40 years by the family of Rear Admiral David Wells, who bought it in 1976 following his retirement from the navy as Flag Officer Commanding the Australian Fleet.

Just how much the property meant to this former man of the sea is evident from the fact that his remains are also buried in a dedicated grave on Pine Ridge, not far from Fritz's resting-place.

Following earlier 'squatters', the first formal owner of Pine Ridge was Scottish-born David Watt, who took up the land in 1862 before it was officially made over to him as a grant in 1867.

Watt by then had already acquired a property called Glencoe in the Upper Hunter, where he was also the licensee of the Highland Home Inn at Wingen.

A shearer reminiscing in later years in the Mudgee Guardian about his visit as a boy to Pine Ridge during the 1867 shearing tells something of the industrial conditions of the time.

'The price of shearing was 15 shillings and find yourself, all sheep not shorn to satisfaction not to be paid for, any shearer using bad language was fined 2/6, and any shearer taking intoxicating liquor onto the station was liable to be discharged.'

With his wife Jane (nee McMaster), Watt spent his last years on Pine Ridge before his death in 1879, followed by his wife's a year later.

Pine Ridge at this time was one of just a handful of stations occupying the rich Upper Talbragar valley. Among its neighbours were Tongy, Turee, Digilah and Birriwa. In 1884 Pine Ridge was bought from the Watt estate by George Henry Cox, grandson of William Cox who built the first road over the Blue Mountains.

A member of parliament for most of the latter half of the 19th century and the inaugural mayor of the Cudgegong Shire, Cox also owned Burrundulla at Mudgee (still in Cox hands), where he died in 1901.

Cox was an early adopter of the Wolseley shearing machines, which made their debut at Dunlop on the Darling in 1888.

Just three years later it was reported in the Sydney Mail that 16 shearers at Pine Ridge using the new-fangled Wolseleys shore 2100 sheep in one day for an average tally of 131.

In its early 1990s heyday the Pine Ridge shed of 24 machine stands was handling annual shearings of more than 20,000 sheep, the wool being hauled by bullock team to the rail-head at Mudgee.

The equine era at Pine Ridge began in 1899 when the property changed hands from Cox to J.A. Buckland, the latter already by that time a noted stud breeder of trotting horses.

J.A. Buckland was a son of Thomas Buckland, a prominent Sydney businessman (his directorships included the Bank of NSW and Pitt Son and Badgery) who also had pastoral interests.

Among the latter was the 72,000ha Wonbobbie station on the Marthaguy Creek near Warren, where he established a trotting stud that was brought to national prominence by his son.

Following his father's death in 1896, Buckland decided to relocate the stud to a more central location. Pine Ridge, with its fertile valley setting and proximity to Mudgee and rail transport, fitted the bill.

Nearby Leadville at this time was a township just beginning to take shape alongside the recently established Mount Stewart silver mine, in a locality previously known as Denison Town.

After buying Pine Ridge in 1899 Buckland sold Wonbobbie and set about making Pine Ridge a fitting showplace for his relocated stud.

His timing proved to be fortuitous, because not long after he took over Pine Ridge, the so-called Federation drought ended and he was able to all but clear the purchase price with sales of fat stock off the property.

Drawing on the abundant nearby supplies of workable sandstone, he erected a stable block for 30 horses and virtually rebuilt the earlier Watt homestead.

Architect William Lamrock from Orange was commissioned to design a veritable mansion, and when completed in May 1901, no-one could dispute that he had done his client proud.

Sprawling over 827 squares, the 26-room homestead boasted a ballroom, ornate pressed metal ceilings, maids' quarters, 11 fireplaces (most with marble surrounds) and wide verandas, all surmounted by a lookout tower from which the owner could survey his domain.

The homestead was surrounded by formal gardens through which, after passing through the stone entrance gates, a carriageway led to the front doorsteps. Nearby was the half-mile trotting track laid down by Buckland, where every morning (when he wasn't elsewhere) he could be found directing training operations, often taking the reins himself.

Although he had stables at Randwick and also in New Zealand, Pine Ridge would be Buckland's home and centre of operations until the property was resumed and broken up for closer settlement in 1919.

During his 20 years at Pine Ridge, Buckland became a household word in trotting circles for his champion steed Fritz, and other horses bred by the same celebrated sire, Vancleve.

Only once did Fritz let him down, when he shipped his champion trotter to New Zealand in 1903 for a much-hyped best-of-five race contest against the local champion, Ribbonwood.

Ribbonwood beat Fritz in three straight heats, in the process breaking Fritz's 2.13 Australasian record by three seconds, although it was said the Australian horse was not at his best, after the gruelling sea trip.

Others said the contest was unfair from the start, as Ribbonwood was really a pacer, and not a true trotter like Fritz, but perhaps that was just sour grapes talking!

As well as trotters, Buckland bred thoroughbred horses, poultry, pigeons, dogs and deer, while also presiding over the mainstream Pine Ridge grazing operation of Merino sheep and Shorthorn cattle.

In the 1919 breakup of the station, 29 blocks were created, ranging in area from 290 to 990 acres (117-400ha) leaving a homestead block of 2404ac (973ha) which the government initially retained.

As with many closer settlements after the First World War, most of the Pine Ridge blocks proved to be too small and many settlers departed, their blocks being re-allocated to others as build-up areas.

The homestead block was allocated in 1925 to Arthur Wilson, who converted the stone stables into a five-stand shearing shed, the original station shed (today much reduced in size) being on another block.

Five other owners held the homestead block before it was acquired by Rear Admiral Wells in 1976, and the present owners in 2015. After leaving Pine Ridge, Buckland moved his stud to Clydesdale, a property he had bought for the purpose at Marsden Park in Sydney's west.

When he died in 1931 aged 73 leaving a wife, a son (another was killed in the war) and two daughters, Buckland left an estate of 233,320 pounds - nearly $22 million in present-day money!

But whether that wealth was accumulated from successes on the trotting track, in the wool sale rooms or elsewhere is not recorded.

Among the information sources for this article was the book, 'Around the Black Stump', a history of the Coolah, Dunedoo and Mendooran areas by Roy Cameron OAM.