Te Akau Friday Update
12 January, 2018
David writes:
We are now well and truly in to my favourite time of the year!
Wellington Cup Week then the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Million Twilight meeting at Ellerslie and then the Sales!
Gee I have seen some truly outstanding yearlings that are going to be sold in a couple of weeks' time at Karaka - beautiful young horses, both colts and fillies, and I will be there with Mark Walker and Jamie Richards buying them.
I can't tell you how excited we are with the yearlings we bought last year. We have seven of the top 18 qualifiers for the Karaka Million 2YO but we also have quite a number of 2YOs that will be in the $1 million Karaka 3YO Classic next year, have no worries about that! We buy some two year old types, some early three year old types and some later three year old types - every horse matures at a different rate, just like we do.
We have had a huge week at Te Akau. Looking at yearlings this past week in Cambridge on Monday - we stayed at Waikato Stud on Monday night and inspected every horse that Mark Chittick is sending to Karaka. I came home on Tuesday late afternoon as we had our very good friend and owner Dr Phillip Mak staying with us with his wife and friends from Hong Kong and then it was back to Cambridge on Wednesday morning to inspect another three drafts.
However the really big news for the week is the sale of 50% of our Savabeel colt Embellish to Brendan and Jo Lindsay. We are so thrilled that Embellish will have his future stallion home at the world famous Cambridge Stud. Burgundy already has the great Zabeel's box at Cambridge Stud so to see both of "our boys" in residence there will really fills us with pride.
Gosh this industry is lucky to have Brendan and Jo Lindsay involved! They are a breath of fresh air for certain and we all wish them all the very best of luck with Embellish who will stand there when his racing career is complete. Meantime he is the current favourite for the $1 million Karaka 3YO Classic and that is our immediate focus.
This morning at 2.00am the team loaded the Trentham-bound Te Akau horses on the float. We wanted to have them travelling to Wellington before it gets too hot. Age of Fire, our Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas' runner up and last start winner, looked a picture and is the current favourite - here's hoping Te Akau can go back to back, having won the 2017 edition with Hall of Fame.
Tomorrow Karyn and I will have a close eye on Trentham for sure but also very importantly for us, is helping our youngest daughter Julia-Rose organise her baby shower at Raglan. Julia-Rose and Hamish are due to welcome their wee one in about four to five weeks. We are also very excited that her sister Lydia and her partner Jamie are currently winging their way to New Zealand from the UK and they will land about 1.30pm tomorrow.
Now back to the sales - if you are keen to invest in this great industry, there has never been a better time! I know there is some very good news coming soon that will make a huge impact on the industry - so please feel free to call me on 021 925 151 or email Karyn [email protected] and you will be made very welcome - we would love you to be part of this special, fun team.