Te Akau Monday Update
Date: 2 Nov 2020
David writes:
What a thrill it is to see the stable in such great form!
With Bak Da Master and Aromatic winning at Awapuni on Saturday, it took our New Zealand trainer Jamie Richards and his team to a tally of 45 wins this season already (only three months completed). That is 29 wins clear of the second stable - Te Akau also leads the way with the number of Group and Listed wins (seven in NZ, two in Australia). Finally - and importantly - Te Akau is the only New Zealand stable to have won in excess of $1 million in New Zealand alone this season - and you can add another A$815,000 in Australian prize money to that season total too.
Let's not forget Jamie's incredible strike rate is now at 4.87.
I have included the Trainers' Premiership table as of today, as I thought you would enjoy seeing for yourself the incredible achievement of Jamie and our team - and the season has still three quarters yet to run!
NEW ZEALAND TRAINERS' PREMIERSHIP - as at 1 November 2020
| Wins | 2nds | 3rds | Stakes | Starts | G & L | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jamie Richards | 45 | 31 | 22 | $1,072,000 | 219 | 7 | 4.87 |
| 2 | Murray Baker & Andrew Forsman | 16 | 20 | 11 | $353,645 | 129 | 1 | 8.06 |
| 3 | Michael & Matthew Pitman | 16 | 15 | 12 | $254,715 | 113 | 0 | 7.06 |
| 4 | Stephen Marsh | 15 | 16 | 24 | $329,140 | 257 | 0 | 17.13 |
| 5 | Tony Pike | 15 | 9 | 13 | $227,870 | 83 | 0 | 5.53 |
| 6 | Kelvin Tyler & Aimee Tyler | 13 | 10 | 5 | $184,250 | 81 | 0 | 6.23 |
| 7 | Allan Sharrock | 12 | 11 | 6 | $226,955 | 63 | 1 | 5.25 |
| 8 | Peter & Dawn Williams | 12 | 7 | 8 | $132,065 | 47 | 0 | 3.92 |
| 9 | Ken Rae & Krystal Williams-Tuhoro | 12 | 5 | 7 | $198,310 | 82 | 1 | 6.83 |
| 10 | Kevin Myers | 10 | 17 | 17 | $277,335 | 137 | 0 | 13.7 |
| 11 | Stephen Autridge & Kris Shailer | 10 | 14 | 5 | $162,175 | 64 | 0 | 6.4 |
| 12 | Team Rogerson | 8 | 15 | 12 | $250,965 | 171 | 1 | 21.38 |
It is also interesting to note that Jamie is sitting at number six on the table for the Jumping Trainers' Premiership. I have always loved the jumpers, and you can see how much these races have improved a horse like Bak Da Master's form.
Jumping has strengthened him, has taught him to settle and you can really see that he is starting to enjoy his races now. He was heading to the jumps' meeting on Sunday but that was cancelled due to a lack of entries. Jamie had the horse at peak fitness so acutely decided to race him on the flat at Awapuni on Saturday instead. He won by nearly six lengths and we have decided to pay the late nomination fee for the New Zealand Cup and give him a chance at racing for some big money.
It is brilliant to have Probabeel home after such a fantastic Spring campaign in Australia where she won at Group 1 and Group 3 level. I thought you would enjoy this photo of her at Brendan and Jo Lindsay's property in Karaka. Gee, she looks just amazing!
It is a big week ahead for our team as we have horses entered in races on nearly every day of the week! We will have horses at Ellerslie tomorrow, Avondale on Wednesday, Otaki on Thursday and we have the Riccarton races, the first day of the New Zealand Cup Carnival, on Saturday.
Karyn and I will be travelling to Christchurch as we will be hosting a function for our South Island owners.
I am really looking forward to Riccarton this Saturday and it is great to have Opie Bosson, our stable jockey, back on our horses in the Group 1 races.
Need I say More is the favourite in the Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas and he has been working the house down in Matamata. He looks to be a good chance in this $500,000 elite race! This is a race we have won six times previously - King's Chapel, Darci Brahma, Tell A Tale, Rock 'n' Pop, Xtravagant and Embellish. All horses I am proud to have purchased.
I would like to congratulate the Honourable Grant Robertson, who is the current Minister of Finance and is now the new Deputy Prime Minister and new Minister for Racing. It is great to have a person of his profile as the Minister for our industry. I am sure, being the treasurer, he will soon realise the great contribution that racing makes to our general economy.
Over the last week, our daughter, Julia-Rose has featured in several articles about her Media and Digital Marketing award, and just I am so proud of her.
It is also great to have her older sister Lydia back home on the farm after 10 years living in the UK. Lydia and her husband Jamie have decided that they want to live in New Zealand permanently which is very exciting news for our whole family.
We have started shearing the lambs today, which will be followed by the ewes - this will keep our team very busy over the next few days. We have 100 acres of a summer crop called plantain that the wether lambs are going on to so that we can finish them off before sending them away.
This morning we sent ouR sixth unit of steers to the works, and they have averaged 395 kgs to date. They are weighing like lead!!
The great thing about sending steers to Greenlea is that you get a phenomenal yield. The cattle are averaging 53.5 percent yield from body weight to carcass weight, which is a big help at the end of the day.
Greenlea is one of the best companies that I deal with - it is owned and managed by outstanding people. Its agent who looks after our work is Alan Radford and he has done all my stock work since 1979.
Yesterday we sent lambs along with 300 older ewes to Wilson Hellaby and it too is another great company that I like to work with. I have been sending them my sheep, ewes and lambs since 1979. As a young guy in my early 20's, I worked there in the freezing works as well! It has been a very good association right from the beginning.
Have a great week and let's hope the good guys continue winning.
- GO THE TANGERINE -
best of luck to all our owners with runners this week
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