Te Akau Midweek Update

David writes:

After one of the most difficult periods that farming in the Waikato has ever experienced, we are now getting a really good autumn.  We are getting beautiful rain here at the farm at the moment and it is nice and warm.

In the month of May if you are getting rain, you are not getting frosts and the grass is thus growing.  Farming has a great habit of being balanced - if you have a bad Spring you usually get a good summer, a bad summer means normally a good autumn; a bad autumn, normally a warm winter - it is just incredible how things level out.  If only we could predict in advance what the season would bring - that would be helpful!

Yesterday I went to the broodmare sale where we had four mares to sell for their owners - the first mare to go through the ring was My Fiancee and she made $34,000, the second mare to go through was Pride & Passion - this mare is in foal to Burgundy and made $30,000.  Exabelle was sold for $13,000 and Imperial Miss $5000.  All prices were fairly predictable.

Reading the results from the weanling sale and looking at the results that were achieved yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking that if the Government came into a partnership even in a relatively small way with the racing industry - how much better we would do.

I don't wear the argument that fewer people are interested in racing - not when you see a clearance rate of 80% at a weanling sale when many of the weanlings were there because they were culled by the studs.  I couldn't stop thinking that if we had a genuine dispersal sale in New Zealand at the moment just how successful it would be.

Imagine if the Chairman of the Racing Board was as successful as the Chairman of the Rugby Board - you will of course recall that the Rugby Union staged the World Cup in new Zealand a few years ago and the Government contributed about $100 million towards it.  We even had an America's Cup Minister - they received about $50 million for the regatta in San Francisco - and a further $5 million to tide them over until they secured their new sponsorship.  I am reliably informed that this has run out and a further $5 million could be provided.

What about the Chairman of NZ Golf who applied for money to support the Michael Hill Gold Tournament - and there are many more examples.  These re just a few where the Chairmen of various sports' bodies have been successful in having money approved to support their sport.

Now I am not being critical of whether supporting the Lydia Ko's of this world or the golf tournaments is a good spend or not - what I DO know is that racing employs far more people and has far greater economic upside than any of these bodies.

You only need to go to the Matamata racetrack at 4.30am to see how many young people earn their wages looking after the horses - so I hope that in the budget there is something that acknowledges the great input that horse racing makes to the general economy and I will be particularly interested in the election manifesto plans of National, Labour and NZ First when it comes to their racing policy.  I think we are reaching a critical time in our industry's life and you only need to see the governmental support that Victoria and New South Wales and also Queensland racing receives - their governments know it is a wise and fundamentally sound spend that delivers economic results.

Today we have another four yearlings that have been broken in heading into our stable - the Fastnet Rock/Randaroo colt, the Fastnet Rock/Beyond the Sunset colt, the Savabeel/Splashing Out colt and the Fastnet Rock/Memories of You filly all leave us today to head to the stable. We have seven race horses that trialled yesterday coming home for a spell.

This week we have Sam Boyd and Dave McCarthy staying at the farm and we are all looking forward to going to the races at Te Rapa on Saturday where they have some very exciting jumps' races and their main winter meeting is always one of the highlights of winter racing in New Zealand.

Also take a look at our two brand new videos on our homepage - one features my review of Karaka and my thoughts about the upcoming Gold Coast Sale and the other is an update on our Four Colts' Syndicate and recent visit by their owners to the farm.  ENJOY!