And the Winner is ...

When all was said and done, Te Akau trainer Jamie Richards came out on top of the "Team Picks Competition" for last season.

Challenged with selecting five
horses: a male and female two and three-year-old, plus one older horse, the
winner-take-all prize was calculated on the highest total of prize money for
the five horses throughout the season.

Richards, with $779,925, beat Te
Akau apprentice Chelsea Burdan, and Karyn Fenton-Ellis MNZM (the previous title
holder) in third.

“It was a close contest and some
discrepancy, but justice prevailed and I am the winner,” said Richards, with a
laugh.

“It is certainly good fun. Everyone
gives each other a bit of cheek about their selections and it creates good team
spirit. Everyone has their favourites. It's a good opportunity to put their
names forward and see how they perform and vindicate their judgement.

Going through his selections and
the process, Richards said: “I picked Te Akau Shark as my older horse and
obviously we were really excited about him. Avantage was our dominant
two-year-old and we thought she would be in for a really good three-year-old
year and although she had a couple of little issues she still raced very well.

“I really liked Aotea Lad as a
yearling. A shorter coupled, medium sized, Savabeel that had plenty of
two-year-old form in his family, so picked him as one of my two-year-olds and
thankfully he did a great job. And hopefully he can come on again this season.

“Sword of Osman was my other
three-year-old and he had a good season, winning the Group Two Sarten Memorial
and gaining solid prize money. My two-year-old filly was Exaltation, Melody
Belle's sister, who had a little issue but here's hoping she'll be in for a
good three-year-old season.

“All the staff take a lot of pride in the horses and, as an example, last week at the Te Teko trials it was evident that the staff had done a great job bringing the horses through the winter because they all paraded really well. They looked forward in their coats, behaved well, and, in general, all trialled well.

“It's a credit to the staff and without the big team we've got it's very hard to get horses to trials and races in such good order. They've done a great job through the winter and we now look forward to getting these horses out at the races.

"As Karyn decided to do last season, I have also decided there will be a "re-investment" of prize money back into this year's pool too."

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