Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

It is hard to describe just what an exciting time of the year February is.

Firstly I am blown away with the quality of yearlings that my team has purchased.  That means the future for Te Akau Racing is also unbelievably exciting.  I really cannot explain the thrill I have when taking owners around our farm and showing them the yearlings that we have bought in the last ten days.

Yesterday I had a phone call from a broadcaster called Tony Veitch who hosts Newstalk ZB Sport and is very highly regarded in that field. He told me that he would like to have a share in a horse and so yesterday he came down and had lunch with Karyn and me - and he is now a proud shareholder in Lot 50 a Fastnet rock filly out of Asavant.

Phone calls like that keep me charged and it is great publicity and great for the racing industry to have sporting personalities like Tony involved.  I was most interested over lunch as Tony told me how at university he got a double degree, majoring in political science and he originally intended to go into politics or be a political correspondent and really got into sport by 'default'.  He is certainly an outstanding broadcaster and has won many awards during his career.

Tony has a world class Facebook page which is unbelievably well-read and he has put a very good video taken at the farm when he met his filly for the first time - he is going to frequently update his involvement in this filly and this will really promote racing and breeding to a new audience.

It is quite incredible how quickly shares in our yearlings are selling. Already our breeding syndicate has a waiting list and it is wonderful news that so many new owners are investing with Te Akau Racing and just how much interest there is.  Although New Zealand racing is battling in stake money terms, we are only $6,000 away from taking our horses to race for some of the best prize money in the world in Australia - of course we are very lucky that we have our Singapore stable where prize money is quite outstanding and is a good opportunity for many owners.

Yesterday we had a huge day at the trials with six trial winners and seven horses running second.  We have some truly promising horses and yet again the progeny of Burgundy were seen at their best with a really nice trials' winner by Burgundy and we also had a nice trials' winner by Rock'n'Pop, another stallion that came through Te Akau Racing in his racing days.

One of the nicest fillies I bought at Karaka was a Burgundy filly - this is a lovely, strong, grey filly.  My team of Mark Walker, Jamie Richards, Doug Black and myself inspected all the Burgundy's and we were determined to buy what we considered was the best Burgundy in the sale.

Have a look at this for a filly. The bonus is that she is out of a Stravinsky mare,  Stravinsky being a really top broodmare sire. If you want to invest in a filly that could be in the Karaka Million race next year but that has enough scope to go on and be a Group 1 1000 Guineas' filly then you could not go past being involved in this filly that I bought for $145,000.  What a beautiful filly.  She is a stand-out!

All of the horses that we have purchased have settled in at Te Akau Stud and are all happy and looking fantastic.

This weekend our attention turns to the races at Te Rapa where their big day of the year is on and I am really excited with Heroic Valour, Abidewithme and Gold Fever who will be our runners, the first two competing for Group 1 honours.

Have a great week and to all those who have invested in Te Akau Racing's new yearlings - congratulations and thank you.  I must be the most excited man in the world.