Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

This highlight of the weekend for Karyn and I was seeing Brendan and Jo Lindsay of Cambridge Stud win such a prestigious international race with Hello Youmzain at Royal Ascot on Sunday morning. 

The Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes 1200m is a stallion-making race and the victory was a huge result for Hello Youmzain. To think that a colt of this quality and pedigree is now going to stand in New Zealand in the future, and be available for New Zealand breeders, is nothing short of sensational.

This sort of news should give everyone in the racing and breeding industry a huge lift.

It is just amazing what Brendan and Jo Lindsay are doing for our industry. Yesterday I read that they are sponsoring the trials at Te Rapa. It is also phenomenal the developments and innovations they have undertaken at Cambridge Stud - we should be so proud to have this world class stud farm in our country. 

Like every stud farm, it needs a good stallion and I really love the progeny of Almanzor.

Te Akau Stud sent three mares to him last season, and when they foaled last year I was so impressed that I had no hesitation in sending them back to him. We have another three foals due this year. 

They also stand Embellish, who is going to be a real chance at stud. He has served 138 mares in his first crop and now they have this most exciting young stallion - Hello Youmzain.

Cambridge Stud hasn't had the best of luck in the last 12 months, but I am a great believer that if you do everything really well and make sound decisions that your luck changes. So this was a very happy occasion for Brendan and Jo, and Henry and the whole Cambridge Stud team, I am sure. 

It was also great to see Dances With Dragon, previously called Hall of Fame, win a major race in Hong Kong on Sunday night. This HK $3.25 million Group 3 winner was a horse that I sold for his owners for very good money when he finished his three year old career. 

I only bought two horses at the Ready to Run Sale that year - they were Gingernuts and Hall of Fame. It was brilliant to see them both go on to finish up winning Group 1 races - four between them, as well as other stakes' races.

Hong Kong is a very important export opportunity for our industry, and it is essential that the horses we sell there win major races.     

Speaking of races, wasn't it brilliant to see racing return at Counties on Saturday? 

Well done to the Counties Racing Club for staging what appeared to be a thoroughly enjoyable day of racing. It is not easy to have 11 races at this time of the year, and on a heavy track, but it all looked to go very smoothly. 

But wow - do I miss Trackside radio and having presenters on the course! Especially on a Saturday! 

For example, I found it tragic that someone was not there to showcase the excitement and the thrill of Callum Jones - the young man who won his first ever race as a jockey. It would have been wonderful if they had caught him straight after dismounting.

Surely having coverage on this would help encourage other young people into apprenticeships into the racing industry. 

It was great to see that several races later, Callum then went on to win his second race. He is extremely fortunate to be an apprentice to Nigel Tiley, who was one of the greatest jockeys this country has produced. He was a top rider in Sydney, Hong Kong and of course in New Zealand. He is now doing exceptionally well as a trainer. 

Gee, I hope as an industry we can get Raceform back into production. I really miss going through and reading stories about the industry and studying the form in that print format.

Good luck to Don Hancock and Dennis Ryan who are doing everything in their power to have this publication back up and running. Let us hope they don't have any road blocks in their hard work on bringing Raceform back into print. 

Last night, I watched the story on the New Zealand greyhound racing industry on TV One's "Sunday" programme. Isn't it incredible how this channel often misses the "good news".

For example, last Friday during the 6pm news, you would think that there would be a story about the return of thoroughbred racing in New Zealand on Saturday, after Covid-19 closed the code for nearly four months but there was absolutely nothing.

The best that they could do was to criticise the funds that Government has given our codes to help the industry return to some form of normality. 

Did they talk about the funds (over $100 million dollars) governments have given the Rugby Union in the last decade? Or how about the America's Cup funding of over $50 million? Or the $24 million that was given to Cricket New Zealand for the last World Cup? Why didn't they talk about the funds originally given to help Lydia Ko's career? Or perhaps the $3 million provided to the Michael Hill Golf Tournament to help get it off the ground? 

Now to be fair, I agree with all of the above support - I am in fact 100 percent behind it.  But why should racing be treated differently when we pay millions of dollars each year in duty, PAYE, ACC, GST and other taxes - the list goes on. 

To me, it seems to be ‘fashionable' for the media to criticise racing.

I believe the racing industry should get on the front foot and just tell the public how much tax and duty our industry has paid in the last 25 years. It would be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars - not to mention all the export dollars and jobs we create.

We are just incredibly fortunate that we have a Minister for Racing who understands the contribution that our industry makes to the general economy. 

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year, so now the days become bit longer from here on in. With the help of the beautiful warm rain that we had on the weekend, I have never seen the farm looking so good for this time of the year.

The good news is that the Hawkes Bay also had really good rain - my great friend Peter Grieve finally has a smile on his face due to the terrific rainfall they have been having.

In other news ... I have learnt that one of the best things about receiving a Royal Honour is that I have heard from friends who I haven't been in contact with for many years. It has been the greatest thing to reconnect with so many people. 

Just this morning I received a lovely letter in the mail from John Magnier, who owns Coolmore Stud, congratulating me. 

I believe John has made the greatest contribution to global racing in my lifetime of anyone I know and his sons MV and Tom are doing an outstanding job running Coolmore in Ireland and Australia.
 

It is not long now until Te Akau Racing has its first runners since lockdown - you can watch them race on Saturday 4 July at Te Rapa Racecourse. We are of course busy with rials at the moment, with another strong contingent heading to the Te Rapa trials tomorrow.

This morning made me realise just how close we are to seeing our horses back on the track, as I was joined in the gym by Opie Bosson, our stable jockey. 

After a good break away, Opie is really looking forward to the new season. His aim is to be back riding on 1 August. 

We are really delighted too that trials return to Kranji this week as Mark Walker and our Singapore team are really ready to get back racing. So you can imagine the delight with today's announcement that the Singapore Turf Club will resume local racing, albeit behind closed doors, from 11 July. There will be strict safety and health measures in place, and the racecourse will not open to the public for the time being BUT racing is on its way back!

In terms of New Zealand racing - I hope you can all come and support the Waikato Racing Club for what will be a really good day on Saturday week!

Have a great week everyone, and get ready to cheer the Tangerine on!     

Back