Te Akau Friday Update

David writes from the Gold Coast:

The sale week on the Gold Coast has been very successful especially the weanling and broodmare sale (main pic from left Dave Hurst, Mark Walker, me and Joe Walls).

The yearling sale is a bit different. There have been quite a lot of culls you can see going through the ring but you have to keep alert because all of a sudden you can see a ripper.

I had Jamie go through the yearlings on my short list to sort them out for physical inspection and we had a look at the better ones on Monday.  All of a sudden we came across a filly that I said 'WOW this one will do me -
this is a filly we want for our stable!'

You'd have to say her preparation for the sale wasn't great, she had a long winter coat but I kept envisaging what she would look like after three weeks at Te Akau Stud.

I was excited and kept waking up during the night thinking about her. She was very difficult to value because she looked so untidy but she was by a great sire in Medaglia D'Oro whose offspring had just won the Golden Slipper and that colt has just been sold for $A40 million and out of a seriously good family.

This filly's dam was by Encosta de Lago, the second dam was by Snippets and the third dam was by Danehill and they were all good racehorses that had left good racehorses. I thought anything under $200,000 would be good buying. I could visualise what a beautiful filly she would grow and develop into, so we were stoked when we bought her for $155,000 and immediately one of the team Dave (and his wife Nicky) Hurst bought half. Dave (see pic below with our new filly) and Nicky have had huge success with us being involved in champion horses such as Maroofity, King's Chapel and Costa Viva.

So far Mark and I have bought them a Champion 2YO, a Champion 3YO, a Champion 3YO, Champion Sprinter/Miler, a NZB Filly of the Year and a Horse of the Year and this this filly was by far their most expensive purchase. Dave and Nicky have now won seven Group 1 races with us and are wonderful people to train for.

You can't really describe the thrill of buying a good horse and the team went back and took photos and then we decided to go and celebrate at our favourite Gold Coast restaurant. Jamie was a very happy young man because he can see what a lovely filly Stephen and he will have to train. My pick is that she will be in the Group 2 Matamata Breeders' Stakes in February and the Group 1 Sires' Produce Stakes in March.

Racing and breeding in Australia is booming.  Already this year six racehorses have been bought to stand at stud for a total $180 million. The Governments in Australia care about their industry whereas sadly in New Zealand they don't seam to care.

This is so sad and incredibly frustrating because if they bothered to ever go to the Matamata training centre at 4.30 am on any morning and saw over 200 young people all in good employment ,working hard, all paying tax and none on welfare - all proud to look after their particular horse -they would realise what this industry does for New Zealand and the economy.  Their lack of interest or concern is just heart-breaking - I have talked about this until blue in the face and despite our government's inaction, I will not stop.

It is a beautiful spell of weather over here and we go travel home on Sunday (back to the New Zealand winter - ha - Ed!).  Karyn leaves tomorrow for London and is really looking forward to seeing our daughter Lydia for the first time in seven months - for me it will be almost a year since I have seen her and I head away about 10 days later.