Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

Even when Karyn and I are on holiday, we still stay in touch constantly with our team and we also keep up with all the racing news via publications such as "The Informant" which offers plenty of racing news and industry views.

One article however that recently appeared in the Sunday Star Times was one that I couldn't quite believe.  it was on Page 2 of this national newspaper and was written by Andrea Vance and it was criticising the government and the Minister for racing for delivering a tax break to people that invest in the racing industry.

The full background to this started in a budget announcement about 13 years ago, when the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced in the budget that the government was increasing depreciation rates on young horses to encourage more investment from new investors into the racing and breeding industry.

Like all changes that take place like this, it has to go through the House of Representatives and Labour/NZ First and National all supported the changes.  This all worked well until National returned to power and the IRD took a different view of the changes and even thought National had voted for this change, when they returned to the government benches they did not ensure the IRD followed the intended changes.

So all the Minister for racing has done in this budget is to make it clear to the IRD that the government wants the spirit of the original announcement adhered to.  The IRD has said that a new investor in a racehorse cannot start claiming the deduction until breeding actually commences however if an investor was to go and purchase 100 cows, the business (or the deduction) commences the day you buy the stock.

It's very simple - racing has been disadvantaged and treated differently for a very long time and all Winston Peters has done is to honour the Dr Michael Cullen changes.

Well done Winston, you are a politician who understands that for racing to survive, it needs an equal playing field, at the very least.

Bill English said he wouldn't help racing as he didn't support gambling - well racing is not just about that - it employs thousands of young people and contributes to the country's GDP and export earnings.  That same government did support the Rugby Union to the tune of some $38 million for the World Cup and yes, he was at the game!  There was much more gambled on the Rugby World Cup than any race meeting in New Zealand.

For the record - I thought that the contribution the government made to Rugby World Cup was money well spent.

I am really looking forward to the John Messara report when it is published.  The government simply needs to ask the question - "do we really want a racing industry in New Zealand?"  If it does want an industry, then it is going to have to make some investment in to assisting the industry.  Luckily the present Minister understands this.

Even on holiday as I said before, we still work and Mark Walker and Jamie Richards identified another horse that had the makings of a good stayer and we purchased 'Richard of Yorke' out of Australia and - unbelievable - Karyn had him sold in under an hour!!  Jamie will prepare this horse for the New Zealand Cup and all going well, the Wellington and Auckland Cups after that.

We were also over the moon with the announcement of the first group of Horse of the Year category finalists - five of our horses are named as finalists and I am proud that I purchased them all as young horses:

Avantage - finalist for Champion 2YO of the Year
Sword of Osman - finalist for Champion 2YO of the Year
Embellish - finalist for Champion 3YO of the Year
Age of Fire - finalist for Champion 3YO of the Year
Gingernuts - finalist for Champion Sprinter/Miler (up to 1600m)

Well done to all of our owners involved - we look forward to the awards in Auckland on 26 August.

There has been no shortage of friends in Waikiki for us to socialise with - quite a racing fraternity here!!  We have been out each night for dinner with really good friends and so so enjoying their company.  Jamie Richards has been here for 10 days and he has travelled back home this morning.  It's been great for us to sit down together and discuss and finalise the plans for each horse for the Spring.

Of course we get a daily report from our track work riders on how the horses are all going and gee I am excited about our team for next season - GO THE TANGERINE!!

It's a great time of the year - although winter bites - as the Te Teko trials are around the corner and we will aim to have about 50 horses trialling there on 7 August.