Global horse breeding conglomerate Darley is preparing to axe more than half the staff at its Twin Hills facility in Cootamundra just two years after taking over the operation. A total of 21 people will be made redundant come June 30 under a company restructure which will see all the horses at the stud relocated to Darley's two main facilities at Seymour and the Hunter Valley. Of the 39 current staff, only 18 will remain to look after general property maintenance.Darley managing director Henry Plumptre told The Daily Advertiser it was no longer sensible to operate three stud facilities."The decision centres on the fact that the Australian business was difficult to run and it made more sense to centralise all the horses to two locations, rather than three," he said.Mr Plumptre also said the region is "not as big a hub as it was 20 years ago" which contributed to the decision.Darley runs operations in Australia, Europe, Japan and the United States and is owned by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.It purchased the Cootamundra facility from Ingham Enterprises in 2008 as part of an overall takeover of the Woodlands Stud operations. One of the conditions of the sale was that all staff were offered the same terms and conditions of their employment. General manager of Darley Australia Olly Tait said at the time, "the staff are very important to us and they are all guaranteed their jobs."Two years later, Mr Plumptre said there was no way the company knew it would close its facility so soon."If we had thought of it pre-emptively we wouldn't have spent $2.5 million on it," he said.He also said there may be a chance for some staff to be repositioned within the company."Not all the staff made redundant were full-time, there were some part-time staff too ... there may be room for them in other areas (of the company)."