Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed lists $5m Mosman house for sale

The five-bedroom Federation house that hit the Mosman market on Tuesday looks like yet another family home owned by the usual professional or finance industry operatives who are so ubiquitous in the well-heeled suburb.

But the ultimate owner behind the company on title is the ruler of Dubai and vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, his highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Sheikh Mohammed is behind the global thoroughbred stallion operation Godolphin, which staked a significant place in the Australian industry long before he won last year’s Melbourne Cup with Cross Counter.

Sheik Mohammed’s Godolphin (previously known as Darley) was founded in England’s Newmarket in 1981 and has since expanded to seven countries around the world, including Australia in 2002 with the purchase of the Kelvinside Stud in the Hunter Valley from former jockey and breeder Hilton Cope.

Northwood Park at Seymour, in Victoria, was added in 2006 and the Woodlands Stud at Aberdeen bought two years later from Bob Ingham.

The Mosman residence on Orlando Avenue is but a small part of that empire, and was bought in late 2016 after one inspection for $5 million as the Sydney home of the then-head of his Australian operations, Henry Plumptre, and his wife, Michelle.

It was a change of scene for the Plumptres at the time from their former Bellevue Hill base which sold that year for $6.85 million.

Following Plumptre’s resignation from the operation in 2017, former Magic Millions managing director Vin Cox was appointed to the top job later that year.

Given Cox remains based on the Gold Coast, the Mosman residence is now superfluous to the group’s needs, prompting it to be listed this week with Bob Guth and Sam Green, of Bradfield Cleary.

The 446-square-metre property with a swimming pool has been renovated since it last traded in 2016 for $5 million.

It has no price guide yet, but Cox said: “If we got that money back on it then great, but we’d be happy with a figure close to that.”