Te Akau Friday Update

David writes:

Gee I take my hat off to all the staff at Te Akau.

Undoubtedly this week has been the most challenging ever.

We are all so over this WET weather. Yes you expect it in July and August not certainly not in October.

I came home from Hawkes Bay last Monday and immediately went around the farm.  I have never ever seen anything like it - the farm was water-logged but that was nothing to what then happened.

Starting at 4.30pm it began to rain like you have never seen.  In the next two and a half hours we had 78 mls of rain (just over 3 inches).  The water flooded everywhere and was over the top wire of most fences. The most amazing thing is just 3kms down the road at Te Akau Transport they did not get a drop.  There has been terrible damage as you can imagine but when the going gets tough the tough get going and all my team here have made a huge effort to get stuck in and we are well on the way to getting back on track.

This weekend we have great friends coming to stay from Sydney - they have shares in last start winner Te Akau Shark who won so well on debut and I am taking them to see their horse race at Matamata tomorrow so that will be fun.

Gingernuts and Chance to Dance are having a gallop between races 2 and 3 at Matamata tomorrow and they will both run next weekend in the re-scheduled Group 1 Livermol Classic - I would love to split them up but that is not possible.

Gingernuts will then race three weeks later in the A$2 million Group 1 Emirates at Flemington - the race that many of us knew as the Mackinnon Stakes, a WFA event over 2000 metres. We are all naturally sad not to be able to run in the Caulfield/Melbourne Cup but thankfully I have the best group of owners of all time who want Gingernuts to come first and do not want him running unless he is 100% fit.

After the Flemington race, Gingernuts will have a brief spell before we get him ready for races like the Group 1 Zabeel Classic, the Group 1 Herbie Dyke Stakes (the richest WFA event in New Zealand) then he is off to Sydney for Group 1 races such as the Ranvet, Queen Elizabeth etc.  There is always the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup next year.

Today our attention turns to the Timaru races where Dan Miller is in charge.  He has the team in great form down there.

Have a great weekend go the Tangerine!