Te Akau Monday Update
2 August, 2021
David writes:
What a way to start the new season!
Karyn and I got so much pleasure seeing Richard of Yorke win the very first race of the new season on Sunday!
What a thrill that was for Roy's (as he is known) owners.
Te Akau Racing has started the season the way that we intend to carry on over the 12 months - and that is in the winner's circle!
I just love seeing the way that Jamie Richards and Michael Roustoby have educated these jumpers. Richard of Yorke never put a foot wrong and his jumping was very classy.
We have had an extraordinary 2020/2021 season! Te Akau Racing won 65% of the Group 1 races in New Zealand, 25% of all the Black Type Races, and over 10% of all prize money. That is an incredible achievement for Jamie and our teams at both Te Akau Racing and Te Akau Stud.
I also read a very interesting article that was written by Andrew Birch, Chief Executive of New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing. It stated that in the season just concluded, there were 2447 races in New Zealand, and Te Akau Racing won 160 of them (or 6.53% of all races in New Zealand).There were also 147 Group/Listed races in New Zealand, and Te Akau Racing won 24.4% of them.
A total of $54,897,010 was put up in prize money, and Te Akau Racing won 10.87% of it (or $5.96 million in dollar value).
FINAL 2020/21 TRAINERS' PREMIERSHIP STANDINGS
| Wins | 2nds | 3rds | Stakes | Starts | G & L | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jamie Richards | 160 | 116 | 84 | $5,969,645 | 790 | 36 | 4.94 |
| 2 | Stephen Marsh | 92 | 83 | 100 | $2,234,518 | 969 | 10 | 10.53 |
| 3 | Michael & Matthew Pitman | 58 | 65 | 48 | $1,194,194 | 505 | 2 | 8.71 |
| 4 | Kelvin Tyler & Aimee Tyler | 57 | 48 | 31 | $937,779 | 343 | 1 | 6.02 |
| 5 | Allan Sharrock | 56 | 30 | 25 | $1,157,237 | 227 | 7 | 4.05 |
| 6 | Tony Pike | 55 | 50 | 50 | $1,016,165 | 339 | 3 | 6.16 |
| 7 | Murray Baker & Andrew Forsman | 51 | 52 | 37 | $2,090,445 | 444 | 7 | 8.71 |
| 8 | Kevin Myers | 51 | 49 | 42 | $925,823 | 416 | 2 | 8.16 |
| 9 | Lisa Latta | 36 | 42 | 50 | $863,845 | 488 | 0 | 13.56 |
| 10 | Fraser Auret | 35 | 24 | 18 | $474,445 | 270 | 2 | 7.71 |
| 11 | Team Rogerson | 33 | 50 | 48 | $926,743 | 632 | 5 | 19.15 |
| 12 | Lance O'Sullivan & Andrew Scott | 32 | 24 | 18 | $1,420,381 | 194 | 4 | 6.06 |
| 13 | Andrew Carston | 31 | 25 | 40 | $465,381 | 395 | 0 | 12.74 |
| 14 | Terri Rae | 31 | 20 | 8 | $521,546 | 129 | 2 | 4.16 |
| 15 | Brian & Shane Anderton | 28 | 28 | 42 | $437,047 | 334 | 1 | 11.93 |
As the new season begins and we started over again with a cleared statistical slate on Sunday morning, I would like to congratulate Jamie Richards and Danielle Johnson for winning their respective Trainer and Jockey Premierships. What a thrill that is! I am so proud of them both.
It was also so great to see the stallion who I have had a lot of success with win all three major stallion awards this season. Savabeel is just an incredible sire. As many of you will know, I have bought a good number of his progeny in recent years and we have certainly been rewarded - just think of Group 1 winners such as Probabeel, Cool Aza Beel, Sword of Osman, Embellish, Hall of Fame and Amarelinha, just to name a few.
Savabeel has had 115 stakes' wins in his career - of this tally, horses which I have bought and Jamie has trained have won 31 of these 115 races - that means 27% of Savabeel's black type wins have come from Te Akau horses.
We have bought/trained six individual Group 1 winners by Savabeel - that is 26 percent of all his Group 1 winners.
I just love Savabeel's versatility - you can win a Group 1 2YO race with him, as we have done with Cool Aza Beel and Sword of Osman, or you can win a Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas which we have done with Embellish. You can win a Group 1 Oaks' race which we have done with Amarelinha, or a Group 3 City of Auckland Cup like we did with Savy Yong Blonk. Better yet, you can win the Group 2 Matamata Breeders' Stakes, as we did with Gold Fever.
Savabeel is a very, very good stallion and one of the biggest thrills I got was breeding Aotea Lad (below) with a group of my closest friends. Aotea Lad, by Savabeel and out of Corsage, won a Group 2 at his very first start as a two year old.
It is going to be a good week to catch up on a bit of office work, especially since I am recovering from surgery on my right leg. I am in plaster from my foot to my knee which means I can't move very fast, or very far for that matter!! I have a very good nurse in Karyn Fenton-Ellis who is looking after me like royalty.
We are very much looking forward to the Grand National Carnival at Riccarton, where we will have Bak Da Master racing, and possibly Richard of Yorke. It is also only three weeks from now until we start sending our horses down to the South Island for the start of the Spring Carnival. We also have big teams of horses trialling this week at Ellerslie (Tuesday) and Cambridge (Thursday). It's such an exciting time of the year as we look forward to spring racing, we just love it.
The other reason we enjoy racing in the South Island during the Spring is that the tracks are normally a bit firmer than what we have in the North during this time. There are some really good stakes' races for the fillies and the three year olds, and over the years we have notched up a pretty smart record in these events.
Have a great week everyone - go the good guys ...