Huge Summer for Team Te Akau

Dennis Ryan of The Informant writes:

Amongst many memorable phases in the development of the Te Akau operation, the opening months of 2017 will always stand out.

From its beginnings in the 1980s when David Ellis tasted Group One success for the first time with Cosmetique in the Easter Handicap, to the early 1990s and providing Gai Waterhouse with her first Group One winner, Te Akau Nick, to becoming the new millennium's dominant force in racehorse syndication, the tangerine and blue Te Akau stamp is now indelible.

Mark Walker took Te Akau to new heights last decade with five domestic trainers' premierships, and last year from his Singapore base he combined with the new Te Akau Matamata pairing of Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards for an unprecedented double - trainers' titles under the one banner in two countries.

This year began with a Gr. 1 Levin Classic win to the classy Savabeel colt Hall Of Fame and January ended in style when Melody Belle took the Karaka Million. The morning after that Ellerslie twilight win, Ellis was back in familiar pose ringside at Karaka as he went about restocking the larder. By the end of National Sale week he had shelled out more than $4.5 million for 30 yearlings.

Coinciding with the opening session of the Karaka Premier Sale was a race meeting in the furthest reaches of the northern region at Te Teko. Amongst the contingent of Te Akau lesser lights down to run there was a chestnut gelding by the unlikely name of Gingernuts. He had shown promise as an autumn two-year-old with a debut second followed by a win, but his second season had commenced with two performances that could only be described as ordinary.

Backing up at Te Teko from a duck-egg result 10 days earlier, a new Gingernuts emerged with an eye-catching win over 1600 metres. From lesser light he was now in the spotlight.

That win got his connections thinking, and the Iffraaj gelding was thus given his chance against the pick of the crop in the Avondale Guineas. He hadn't been entered for the Vodafone New Zealand Derby when initial nominations closed in mid-November, but the traditional Derby dress rehearsal would tell whether he warranted supplementing.

“This is the ultimate to go with our Karaka Million win in January; it's been a fantastic few weeks.”

What transpired will be talked about for years as one of the most extraordinary performances witnessed in Group racing. Gingernuts, ridden by pinch-hitter Johnathan Parkes, blew the start by a conservative six lengths and appeared to be out of contention when still last with 600 metres to run. But then something remarkable happened as Parkes angled to the inside while those ahead of him swung wide on the slow track and Gingernuts sailed through to score by more than a length.

He had only to emerge from that Derby trial in satisfactory condition for connections to stump up the $30,000 late fee and thus he entered the market as third favourite.

History now records that the gelding David Ellis had paid $42,500 for at the 2015 Karaka Ready to Run Sale combined with first-time rider Opie Bosson for a comprehensive win in the country's premier classic.

In contrast to Bosson and his equally no-fuss mount, the Ellerslie grandstand and birdcage bore witness to wild scenes as the army of Te Akau Gingernuts Syndicate members - many of them first-time owners wearing distinctive tangerine caps bearing the blue “G-Nuts” insignia - celebrated their horse's magnificent victory.

For senior co-trainer Stephen Autridge it was sweet redemption from the low point in his career back in 1981 riding the New Zealand Derby favourite Altitude when the champion colt suffered a fatal haemorrhage. The bonus was Gingernuts being ridden by his godson Bosson, who he has guided through a hugely successful career punctuated by weight issues.

For Jamie Richards it was yet another giant leap in a training career that is still less than two years old.

And for the man who has made it all possible for Autridge, Richards and a horde of happy owners, it was a first New Zealand Derby victory on the track that has been his favourite since his teenage years in the early 1970s.

“It doesn't get any better than the Derby at Ellerslie,” Ellis told The Informant this week. “Thanks to so many hard-working people who are all part of our team we've had a wonderful run of success over the years. This is the ultimate though to go with our Karaka Million win in January; it's been a fantastic few weeks.”

The last thing Ellis will be doing is resting on his laurels, especially so with owners to be signed up for the 36 yearlings currently on his books. Nor will there be any let-up in what awaits the current racing team, beginning with Melody Belle and Gold Fever vying to add tomorrow's Gr. 1 Sistema Stakes to their last-start wins in the Karaka Million and Matamata Breeders' Stakes.

Plans are also well in hand for Gingernuts to take on Australia's best three-year-olds in Sydney, possibly as soon as next Saturday in the Rosehill Guineas ahead of the A$2 million Australian Derby at Randwick.

Then there's the prospect of a sizeable team spear-headed by Group One-winning colts Hall Of Fame and Heroic Valour competing at the Queensland winter carnival, with further Australian targets to follow in the spring.

“When Mark relocated to Singapore it was necessary to support him with horses from our New Zealand operation, and while we will continue to do that with horses we feel will be suited to competing for what are very good stakes up there, we will also increase our focus on the big races in Australia,” explained Ellis.

“Mark has done an amazing job building up the Kranji stable. His first premiership was well deserved and he's leading the trainers' table again this year. Now it's got to the stage with the success he's had that he has a higher proportion of locally-owned horses, so there's not such a need to send as many horses up there.

“A horse like Gingernuts, he could be seen as a Singapore Derby type, but if he races up to his New Zealand form in Sydney he wouldn't be out of place in Melbourne in the spring. More and more when I look at what he's done lately, I'm thinking he could be a Caulfield Cup horse.”

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