Te Akau Friday Update

David writes:

It is quite remarkable the interest in Xtravagant in Melbourne. Yesterday morning he left Matamata at 4am but due to delays outside of anyone's control, he was still at Auckland airport at 1pm. He never turned a hair on the flight over and has settled in really well, eating practically all his feed last night and drinking lots of water. Gee I wish all horses were as hassle-free as Xtravagant.

This morning his groom Dan Miller took him out on the Flemington track and gave him a trot and a canter, followed by a swim and a long walk. He said he has never felt better. The experts in Melbourne are saying that this is the best Australian Guineas' field for many years so we have our fingers crossed that everything goes well and to plan.

It is such a beautiful day in Melbourne and the forecast is for another great day tomorrow so the track will be beautiful for Xtravagant.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand and at Matamata Jamie Richards reports that everything is going like clockwork. We have a very exciting team in tomorrow for the first day of Auckland Cup Week at Ellerslie, Group 1 BMW Derby Day. A filly that deserves some luck at Wingatui in the Listed NZB Airfreight Stakes is Princess Davone. Pam Gerard reports that she looks terrific and is happy in her work.

We also have horses getting ready to trial next week. We have a very strong team of particularly nice young horses that will be ready to hit the track and race in coming months, towards the end of March and April.

Although Xtravagant is the horse of the moment, and is the one that is constantly in the media, let me assure you that every horse in the stable is really important to us and we certainly have not taken our eye off all of our other horses!  For example next Tuesday we are going to take Sassy ‘n' Smart and Heroic Velour to Ellerslie. Sassy will be ridden by Matt Cameron and Heroic Velour will be ridden by Jonathan Riddell who is coming up especially for the gallop.  This is an important experience for these two year olds as they line up tomorrow week in the Group 1 Diamond Stakes there.

The other news at Te Akau Stud is that we are half way through weaning all the foals and the quality of the grass is quite exceptional to wean the foals on after beautiful autumn rain.

In Singapore tonight Mark Walker and the Te Akau Singapore team have a nice team to race including Rockfast.  It is exciting seeing him backing up after a really strong win last weekend. Mark has started the season the way he will finish, in great style and I have never seen Mark so focused, happy and driven towards the goal of his second premiership.

I am looking forward to catching up with the owners of Xtravagant - most of them have made the trip to Melbourne to join us in a nice function tomorrow at Flemington. It will be a great day out with friends.

Photo credit - Mark Gatt