Karaka is Close

David writes:

After two days of inspecting yearlings this week, today is a day for my "yearling sale hat" to be taken off and my "Te Akau Stud hat" put back on!

We are very busy on the farm selling cattle at the moment and with the hot weather it is important to draft and move the cattle before the sun comes out so we have been having particularly early starts each morning.

This week we will be selling a truck and trailer load of cattle each day from Monday through to Saturday and we have a further three units (truck and trailer loads) to go next week.

On the sheep front, we had 200 old ewes in at the Frankton sale and a nice line of five year old ewes at Kauroa sale today.  The prices are pretty firm and in the future, immediate prices of course will be determined by the weather.

We are also busy preparing the farm for the arrival of the yearlings that we will buy at Karaka later this month.  All of our paddocks look in pristine shape - fencing, clean troughs, weeds sprayed - everything is in great order for our new purchases when they arrive home.

On the racehorse front, our Matamata stable is really firing!  At Rotorua earlier in the week we had four runners and three were winners, all ridden by Matt Cameron.  It is great to see the stable having so much success and to have a strike rate of 4.2 is an unbelievable reflection on all of our team who we have looking after the horses.

I was thrilled to see Equanimity, the Sir Peter Vela bred and raced More Than Ready filly out of Insouciant, win.  Insouciant was a great filly for us.  We trained her to win the prestigious NZB Filly of the Year series - her highlight victory undoubtedly in the Group 1 NZB Insurance 1000 Guineas.  It is always very fulfilling to see the next generation of fillies - the daughters of those you have trained - coming through.

Rapid Gain also won at Rotorua - I bought this colt (now a gelding) for $90,000 at Sydney Easter Sale and he has shown a lot of ability but unfortunately needed to have a wind operation but it is certainly not restricting him and he has a bright future in front of him.

Our third winner was King Savinsky - this gelding was bred by Gavin and Shane Wealleans and was bought by me at Karaka Select Sale for $90,000 for Fortuna Syndicators. He is a real staying type of horse who looks like he will go on and race in big 3YO staying races.

This is a busy time of the year for our staff and real horsepeople know that the show goes on regardless of whether it is Christmas or New Year and our team does it with smiles on their faces.  They are involved in racing as they truly love the horses and they love winning races for our owners and that reflects in the results that Te Akau delivers.

Although we have 70 horses in training at Matamata, a lot of them are being prepared for Singapore which restricts the number of horses available to race in New Zealand so it is a wonderful achievement for Jason to still lead the Trainers' Premiership.

Karyn and I also get a huge thrill out of seeing the success that our stable rider Matt Cameron is having - just to give you an idea of how hard Matt works - on Monday morning he had been riding for something like five of the previous six days.  He travelled to Rotorua, had a full book of rides, won three races for us and then drove back to Karaka where he lives.  Next morning he was up before 3am and on the road to Matamata where he rode track work for us.  You only do these sorts of hours because you enjoy riding good horses and because you are dedicated - and it is great in life to see people who really put the work in get the results they have earned.

I am really looking forward to travelling to the Central Districts next week to inspect further drafts of yealrings there. Then on Friday we will arrive in Wellington and attend the races at Trentham on Saturday.  We have a terrific team engaged that day at the Wellington Cup Carnival's first day.  Aspen and Chambord will be very competitive in the Group 1 Levin Classic as will Smashing in the Group 2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes, plus we will have two in the Listed Anniversary Handicap that we won last year with Glad for Waikato Stud - Bronte Lass and Abidewithme.

At Ellerslie on that same day we also have some very good chances too - including a filly we hope to qualify for the Karaka Million.  We expect Flaming to be competitive in her final race before the Karaka Million.

Another high class 3YO we have resumes at Ellerslie - the venue of arguably her greatest race to date where she won the Listed Soliloquy by almost seven lengths! Spellbinder (pictured below) is targetting the Listed Karaka Mile at Ellerslie at end of month. She having first start since finishing a gallant 3rd to her stablemate Costa Viva in the Group 1 NZ 1000 Guineas.

I loved inspecting the yearlings this week - yesterday we went to Milan Park, a boutique operation which had some stunning yearlings.  Then we went to Pencarrow Stud and wrapped the day at The Oaks Stud.  There are certainly some nice horses out there for people to be involved in racing and as we have said, Te Akau expects to play a very prominent part in the Karaka Sale results!

I have said a number of times that this year will offer unique circumstances for people to get into racing with the best in the business, Te Akau.  There are some beautiful fillies in the sale for people interested in the girls and it will be a buyers' market this year for certain I believe.

Tomorrow we will cover the Matamata area and finish back in Cambridge to complete that area on Friday.