Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

It's another beautiful day at Te Akau Stud - the mornings are starting to get quite nippy but by 9.ooam it has warmed up to be a beautiful day.  It is certainly perfect weather for breaking the horses in and today we have nine horses that we will ride for the first time.

One filly that we are breaking in at present that I particularly like is a Stravinsky filly out of Miss Zapper, she really looks a two year old in the making.

Today James Jackson will ride 15 young horses - to most people that would be an exhausting job, it would be like playing three games of football on one day.  James however just loves it and it a truly skilled horseman - you can see how happy he is when he is on the back of a horse and it is brilliant to see how well our horses are being educated.

Karyn and I had a great night watching the cricket - wasn't it exciting?  It is just incredible how Brendon McCullum has got the team performing so well on every level - on and off the pitch.  Weren't his 59 runs off 22 balls amazing to watch?

One other thing I really enjoyed catching was the gracious manner in which the South African captain took defeat - you could see from the expression on their faces after the game how gutted and upset they were but AB de Villiers was very gracious and congratulated the New Zealand captain and team in the fashion of a true sportsman.

Today we have six horses coming home form the stable to spell, it is a fantastic time of the year to spell horses with the green grass coming away, still nice warm weather and our horses are absolutely thriving.

Yesterday I told you about our Alamosa filly out of Tinsel Time we are selling - (Tilly the Filly) - she is now all sold as is our Stravinsky filly out of Miss Zapper -we now have a waiting list for both horses.

Today for the final time I am selling shares in our Fastnet Rock colt out of Ocean Pearl - I like this colt so much that what is not sold by tonight I am going to keep and race myself.

This colt was purchased for what I believe is unbelievable value of $220,000 for a son of this super sire.  He is out of a Galileo mare - so Fastnet Rock over a Galileo mare should be a phenomenal breeding cross with one sire being the very best sire in the southern hemisphere and the other being the best in the northern hemisphere.  In fact Aidan O'Brien said Galileo was the best horse that he has ever trained - and he has trained some super stars!

This colt is quite precocious and I can see him winning 2YO races but most importantly I can see him going on to be a Derby colt - he has a terrific rib to him, great balance, is correct and has really good muscle and is extremely athletic - he is all class.  We have given him the stable name Miki (after the famous Mikimoto pearls I am told!!).

A 10% share in this stunner is $22,000 and a 5% share is $11,000 - Fastnet Rock can do no wrong and when you think of his service fee - Miki was outstanding buying!

We have an exciting day and night planned for Sunday when we will have some good friends and family for dinner and we are going to open the bar and enjoy the Black Caps perform in the final in Melbourne.