Te Akau Midweek Update - News!!

David writes:

David says a 'big congratulations' to the Auckland Racing Club for putting on unbelievably successful day's racing on Boxing Day. The course was in beautiful condition and as usual everything at Ellerslie was very well run.

It is great that Te Akau won two races on such a competitive day and I was really impressed with the courage that both of these boys by Savabeel showed.

The first winner on Boxing Day was Splurge - he is part of a breeding syndicate that I put together to buy colts and although he has now been gelded, it is still a very successful syndicate.  One of the four horses in the syndicate is dual Group 1 winner and Champion 3YO of last season Xtravagant who is having an exhibition gallop at Ellerslie tomorrow - he will gallop with Group 1 winner Heroic Valour after Race 5.  I believe that this syndicate has now won 15 races for a total winning margin of about 50 lengths and Splurge's narrow win at Ellerslie was the only close finish that any horse in the syndicate has had for a win.

Xtravagant is coming up very impressively and Steve and Jamie could not be happier with how he is coming to hand.

Back to our Boxing Day victories though and I thought Hall of Fame's run was pretty exciting too.  The 3YO event that he won impressively was also won by Te Akau last year when Xtravagant prevailed so it was thrilling to go back to back, especially as these two colts have a number of owners in common.  So they had a ball winning two races on this special day.

I have to say however that I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the way New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) is being run. I know I have said this many times before but it really does appear that the people making the decisions do not know what it is like to actually race horses.

For example the maiden race at Stratford on New Year's Eve had 30 horses nominated but yet NZTR did not split the race. This is just ridiculous and they wonder why they have not got horses in the Rating 65 bracket. The more maiden winners we have, the more horses that we have to run through the grades.

Another example is the two year old race at Ellerslie tomorrow with 16 acceptances. In my opinion it should have been split and had two fields. Who wants to bet in a maiden race with a horse that has drawn 15 or 16? If NZTR has used its head, it probably would have had two seven-horse fields, giving good lead up form for the Karaka Million at the end of January.

Yesterday I went with some friends to Soul Bar in Auckland for a lunch to celebrate our youngest daughter Julia-Rose and her fiancée Hamish Hayes' engagement. More on that later in this update. Also our celebration at lunch yesterday was two-fold as Burgundy delivered his third winner from as many starters. Gosh isn't he an exciting sire in the making? I have been preaching Burgundy to anyone who will listen in these updates for a long time now. He is a hugely promising sire and to have horses in only three races to date and for them all to have won, and very impressively too I might add, is really such a thrill.

Our Burgundy filly that won is named Nucleonic. She is out of a mare called Mexican Rose that I bought with my very good friend Greg Tomlinson. Nucleonic drew the outside but was on the fence within 50 metres and really showed a lot of potential and we will now head to the Group 2 Matamata Breeders' Stakes with her.

I fell in love with Nucleonic right from when she was a foal. She is just a gorgeous, smallish type of filly but with a lot of strength and she is a real character. Congratulations to the owners of Burgundy. It certainly looks like they are going to have a lot of fun with him as a stallion and of course there is nothing more rewarding financially than having a good stallion at stud.

On the way home today to the farm I cast my memory back to when I bought Burgundy at the Karaka Sale about seven years ago. He was a horse that you could actually really love. He had such an amazing temperament and was always trying to please. I still maintain he is the fastest horse that Te Akau has ever trained. He won a stakes' race at just his third start when he won the Canterbury Stakes, ridden by Matt Cameron. Prior to that, his second start was an apprentice riders' race at Taupo and I remember James MacDonald getting off telling me what a great feel he gave him.

Today after lunch I went out and inspected all the Burgundy foals at Te Akau Stud. Then I went and had a look at his yearlings and they pretty much all have the same things in common. They have a great head, a really good hindquarter and they all want to please. So to say I am excited is an understatement. We have two other Burgundy fillies that have both won trials and we are looking forward to seeing them at the races in the next couple of months.

However the most important news has to be this!

It has been a week of huge excitement at Te Akau Stud. On Friday Hamish Hayes came down to the farm from Auckland and proposed to our daughter Julia-Rose. He did this in a very romantic way.  Hamish had asked my permission to marry Julia-Rose quite a few weeks ago and then he also spoke to Karyn - he involved us in all of the planning as he designed the ring himself and kept Julia-Rose completely in the dark.  The intrigue was top level especially when trying to keep a secret like this from our youngest daughter!!

Hamish asked me to take him right to the top of the farm where I dropped him off with Julia-Rose's favourite dog Kane, our golden retriever. Hamish had a bottle of champagne on ice and around Kane's collar there was a box with the engagement ring in it. I took him up to the farm first and he waited in an area where he could not be seen. I then took Julia-Rose up to the farm on the basis that I wanted her to take some photos for our web site.

She said to me “This is such a pain (as I had made her drive down from Auckland that day) - why would you want me to do this on the last day of work before Christmas. I am so busy and I do not have a lot of time for this and the traffic is going to be diabolical driving back to Auckland.”

I said "well we are just going to do this, so end of story.”

I took her up to the top of the hill and said that I was going to bring some cattle around the side of the hill that I wanted her to photograph. I then left her up the top of the hill and drove away to supposedly organise the cattle.  Hamish gave her a huge fright by standing up and walking towards her with Kane. They had half an hour together before I came back to pick them up with Karyn and Hamish's mother Catherine and his sister Pip who had also sneaked down from Auckland to be part of the joyous occasion.

Julia-Rose of course works full time for Te Akau Racing and is in charge of all the social media and marketing for Te Akau Racing. At the Ready to Run Sale she syndicated her first horse, a Reliable Man filly, in just two days.

It has also been wonderful having Mark Walker home staying with us and having Christmas with us.  We bade farewell to him yesterday - racing for the new Singapore season kicks off with back to back meetings on 1 and 2 January at Kranji and Mark has around 22 runners!

So yes, this week has been very special indeed.

We hope you are enjoying this festive time and look forward to staying in touch.