Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

The Horse of the Year Awards' dinner at The Langham Hotel on Sunday night was a really top evening and I was so proud to see the team win three awards. 

There are some seriously fantastic trainers in New Zealand who would measure up anywhere in the world so for Te Akau trainers Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards to win the Dunstan Trainer of the Year award was unbelievably exciting. 

What made is truly special for Karyn and me is now that we have achieved this milestone in two countries within the same 12 months - with Mark Walker being named 2015 Champion Singapore Trainer in January this year.   When you are in charge of buying horses for the Singapore and New Zealand stables and have both top of their table is an unbelievably rewarding experience. 

That is also why the announcement of Xtravagant as 2015/16 Champion 3YO of the Year was just so very special.  I selected and purchased this son of Pentire from Karaka for an outstanding ownership team.  People who love their racing and are so loyal to our stable.  To have many of them with us on the evening and also join us on stage to celebrate this award truly capped off a very special event.  Xtravagant was one of eight finalists for this award and between them they had won nine Group 1 races - so he was in illustrious company alongside the likes of Sofia Rosa, Provocative, Tavago, Valley Girl, Rangipo and others.

We were honoured to have most of our senior staff join us from our Matamata stable and from Te Akau Stud and it was great for them to see the results of their incredible hard work and dedication last season.

I thought the two MC's were top class.  Hamish McKay is very keen on getting involved in racing and with his media contacts, he will be a terrific asset to New Zealand racing.   Alongside Hamish, Mick Guerin conducted the interviews on stage -  he is a world class broadcaster and the questions he asked each winner were unbelievably well-researched and he posed them in a brilliant fashion. 

There were politicians at the awards' dinner from three parties. The Minister for Racing Hon. Nathan Guy was there, together with the Opposition Spokesman on Racing Kris Faafoi plus a former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Racing the Rt Hon Winston Peters (Leader of NZ First) plus it was terrific to see our own local MP for the Waikato Barbara Kuriger.

It was a super evening, I was silly enough to go to the Viaduct Basin at midnight to the after-party. The after-match function was held at Soul Bar with Karyn and I being the last two to leave at 4.15am so that shows what an all-round good evening the awards' night was! I understand the awards are on Trackside TV tonight, so be sure to tune in. 

Our annual holiday now seems like a distance away - coming back and this morning seeing Karyn's home town of Timaru at minus 7 degrees reminded us we were well and truly home.  On the farm this morning you could more than feel the winter. We have just about finished lambing and will be ready to start docking in the next week. We are busy buying cattle now as I believe they could be hard to buy and very expensive when the grass comes in Spring. The Waikato is starting to get short of grass with the frosts and cold weather but the days are getting longer and we are only two weeks away from the grass growing and heading towards the spring time.  

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