Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

Yesterday was a very busy day for us!

Karyn left the farm at 5.45am heading for Auckland as she was working for the Trackside team broadcast for its Melbourne Cup special.  She started in the studio and then headed down to broadcast links from Soul Bar at the Viaduct where they have a big Melbourne Cuip day event that is always sold out within hours of ebing advertised back in August.

She had a bite there when she finished before she went to Ellerslie to meet up with me (and bumped in to Blair Alexander - Matt Cameron's partner and Monique Cairns who is the Communications' Manager for the New Zealand Racing Board (main pic).

Then Karyn and I celebrated the Melbourne Cup at the Ellerslie races - we didn't have any luck with our two starters although Abidewithme went a stunning race in the Listed Sofitel Luxury Stakes to be beaten half a head.  Imperium had no luck being chopped off at the start and finishing up in a  position where he couldn't win but his day will come.  I think he is a very good horse in the making.

Today we have Show No Emotion racing at Avondale for Gavin and Shane Wealleans.  Tomorrow Karyn heads to Wellington for the AGM of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing and I fly to Christchurch.  We will meet up later in the day in Christchurch as we have are hosting about 60 of our South Island owners to our Owners' cocktail party.  Karyn and I always enjoy spending time talking with our owners about their horses and everything in racing and life in general!

We will be in Christchurch for the weekend as we have Rockfast running in the Group 1 2000 Guineas (he has drawn 9 of 10) and Wolfwhistle (drawn 7) and Bronte Lass (drawn 2) also step out on Saturday at Riccarton Park.

The Cup Carnival at Riccarton is one of my favourite events of the racing year so if you are in the South Island coming to this carnival is an absolute must - it has been a lucky carnival for Te Akau as we have won the Guineas seven times in the last 10 years - fingers crossed again for 2014!

Today at Te Akau Stud we had the fertiliser truck going in all our horse paddocks - we put on half a ton of lime and three hundredweight of super-phosphate to the acre.  Our horse paddocks have just been chewed out with big numbers of sheep and cattle and they look absolutely sensational and ready for the yearlings I buy when they come home from the Karaka Sale.  yes plenty of planning for that is already underway!