Te Akau Easter Monday Update

David writes:

Firstly we hope your Easter has been a happy one - with relaxing times spent with your family and friends.  It has been a great Easter at Te Akau Stud but no time for relaxation, we are as busy as ever!

Easter started off well with the engagement announcement of my eldest daughter Joanna - she bought her now-fiance Leon the farm on Thursday night.  Leon asked me if he could marry Jo and it wasn't long before the champagne corks popped and we had a terrific evening of celebration.

We have also had amazing rainfall with 85 mls falling since Thursday morning.  Practically all of it has been soft, gentle rain that has all gone into the ground and it is great to see the farm starting to green up so quickly.

Well done to Mark in getting Mia, another promising type, home to win in Singapore yesterday- the stake money in Singapore is of course unbelievable and it is great to see Mark continuing to prepare winners most weekends.

This morning I have driven right around Te Akau Stud with my dictaphone noting all the jobs that need done in the next fortnight so the staff can be assured they will be kept busy with maintenance in April and May as I love everything looking tidy and in order.

We had James Jackson our breaker here before dawn and he has driven or ridden 18 yearlings today with his team - young horses that are in the breaking in process here at the farm.

I really enjoyed watching the Sydney races on Saturday afternoon - the quality of racing was world class and wasn't it exciting to see the Kiwi bred horses clean up at the Carnival especially over the mile and further?  But even 1200m, Bounding went a super race at Randwick.

It is so important that our horses do well when they go to Australia for the sake of the Group racing status of racing - for our racing to have credibility we need to win races in Australia.  The good news is that this inaugural Championships' Carnival has been one of our vintage ones.

Karyn and I were also thrilled to see James McDonald win the $4 million Queen Elizabeth and the Oaks both at Group 1 level, on the back of his Golden Slipper victory.  Congratulations to the Baker/Forsman team for having (It's a) Dundeel peaking at the right time.  He certainly is going to have every opportunity at stud and being out of a Zabeel mare is a definite bonus.

This week we are going to concentrate on selling the Coats Choice colt that we purchased from the South Island session for only $21,000 plus GST.

This colt is a very athletic and strong individual who has settled in perfectly since coming to Te Akau Stud and we will begin to break him in shortly.  Natuzzi is undoubtedly Coats Choice's flag bearer at the moment winning the Listed Lightning Stakes at Trentham for the second consecutive year before running second in the Group 1 Telegraph and then winning the $100,000 Pink Ribbon Cup at Caulfield just last weekend.

There is a lot of talk from trainers about the ones that haven't made it to the races yet, the ones that they have waiting in the wings and they like them - a lot!  Our colt's dam (by Encosta de Lago) would also have to be one of the best mares that he had and Berkley Stud rated him as their pick of the sale.