Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

Even though we are on holiday we still love getting all the news from home.  We follow all the Kiwi news' sites to stay in touch with what is happening in New Zealand and of course the world.

I love getting all the news about our track gallops - this morning we galloped 30 horses and have 20 ready to do some fast work tomorrow.  Matt Cameron galloped eight this morning and he reports that Spellbinder (pictured below) gave him a terrific feel.  She is a high class mare who could well go all the way this coming season.

This morning we welcomed Hayden Allen to the team.  Hayden is going to ride work for us each morning for about three months before he makes up his mind about where his future lies - he has of course been training in partnership with John Sargent this past season.

We are really fortunate that even with our Assistant Trainer Pam Gerard and her partner Tommy Hazlett away on holiday, we still have terrific staff under Jason's guidance who look after the whole team.

Today after finishing riding work, Jamie Richards has been at Te Akau Stud where he has been taking photos of our spelling horses and emailing our owners with an update.

I found it so disappointing to read that we have had yet another race meeting cancelled in New Zealand this week - this time Counties.  The total races we have lost is now in the vicinity of 140 - that's a total of 15 race meetings.

I have been saying for ages that we need an all weather track!  Sure horses that missed a start can race next week but look at the lost opportunities (and with the current attrition rate you can't assume "next week's" meeting will go ahead anyway)!

The jockeys miss out on a day's work, the trainers miss out on their percentages, the float operators miss out, the staff who run the totes miss out on a day's work, the on course caterers miss out, the barrier staff, the Clubs themselves - I could go on and on - it's hopeless and the owners have to pay to have their horse in work for another week.  Where is the leadership?

We need an all weather track!

It's not just the turnover that is lost, the galloping code loses out on a small percentage of overseas' betting income because this formula is calculated on New Zealand betting.  For example if the galloping code does 55% of the total betting on the three codes, then it receives 55% of the profit from overseas' betting.

So you can see that we need every race to be run because if we can get this figure to say 57% it makes a very big difference.  I find it very sad that our racing administrators don't all work together and get on with installing an all weather track in the Waikato.

This week we sold our 50th yearling of the year when we bought an Iffraaj filly out of Nikey Davone.  This filly was sold to our existing owners within two hours - and was sold before we even had time to put her on our website.  Our horses sell so quickly that it is very important to let us know in advance if you are interested in a share in a new horse.

It is amazing how many people buy a share in a horse for their spouse (don't they Robert and Wendy? who have done this recently) or partner - ortheir parents too (don't they Colin and Paul? who hve also done this recently) for their birthdays or for Christmas.  Karyn sends them a gift wrapped parcel with a lovely photo - it goes down fabulously well!!!  We are great at helping you plot and plan your wonderful surprise.

Our next New Zealand target is the Ready to Run Sale - I purchased some very good horses out of this sale last year and we will be buying more again this year!