Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

Thank you all for the very positive and supportive messages we have received wishing everyone - Jason and Stacey, Stephen and Lynley and Jamie and the whole Te Akau team - all well.  Your kindness and thoughtfulness means a lot to everyone.

About the middle of 1986 I had Jim Gibbs and his wife Anne for dinner at Te Akau Stud.  In those days Jim trained horses for me such as Te Akau Lad, Slice of Heaven, Imposeur and others.  We always had about six horses with Jim from around 1983 onwards.  That night Jim told me that the rider who gave him the best feedback of any jockey he had ever had was Stephen Autridge.  "Stevie" as Jim used to call him, has an incredibly instinctive feeling for a horse and is a terrific judge.

At the time I also had a number of horses in work with the late Bill Ford.  Bill trained my first ever Group 1 winner when Cosmetique got up in the last stride to beat Waverley Star in the 1986 Easter Handicap.  Bill also trained a colt during that same period that is still one of the best horses I have ever seen - he was called Altitude.  He won eight races in a row and was favourite for the Group 1 NZ Derby (after which he died).  For every one of those eight race wins, he was ridden by Stephen Autridge - the only time he didn't win was when he bled internally in the Derby and died about one hour after the race.

I got to know Stephen really well at this time and always remembered what Hall of Fame trainer Jim Gibbs told me - so when Stephen told me he was going to retire from riding because of weight problems I offered him a job here at Te Akau Stud. We go on like a house on fire and after 18 months, he left to travel to Australia to get more experience.

In 1992 I offered Stephen the role of Head Trainer at Te Akau Racing in Matamata.   His foreman was a young guy who had worked for me since the day he left school - Mark Walker.

The stable was hugely successful and one year we were the only stable to win Group 1 races on both sides of the Tasman with Captain Moonlight, a Grosvenor colt winning what is now the Group 1 Zabeel Classic and Crystal Palace who won the Group 1 Queensland Oaks.

After five years Stephen decided to go out on his own and Mark Walker took over.  Talking to Mark yesterday he said how great it was to have Stephen back in the team.  When Mark was learning his craft I sent him for experience to Gai Waterhouse and also David Hayes and Mark says that the person he learned the most from was Stephen - "he just knows how to get inside a horse's head, he's a great horseman".

During the last year or so Mark Walker and I have been impressed with the potential that Jamie Richards has shown us.  It is very exciting to have Jamie joining Stephen and their training partnership will obviously have plenty of experience and energy.

We are also very fortunate to have our Assistant Trainer Pam Gerard and foreman Steve O'Neill in the team.  These two are two of the very best in the business.  In my view, at present Te Akau has the best team of staff in the history of our organisation so we have a lot to look forward to.