Te Akau Monday Update
Date: 16 Jan 2023
David writes:
It's been a sad start to the year with the funerals of two racing legends and Hall of Fame members Sir Patrick Hogan and Colin Jillings. Both were good friends of ours, and were the best in the business at what they did. I was honoured to give a eulogy at Colin's funeral, and Karyn was humbled that the Jillings' family asked her to MC the service. My uncle also passed away on Christmas Day so it's been a very sad time, saying farewell to good friends and a beloved family member.
The last two weeks have been full on racing, and also attending the Magic Million's yearling sales on the Gold Coast where we bought eight yearlings.
On our way home, we talked about how fortunate we were that a good number of the yearlings we liked, were so early in the sale. In my opinion by lunch time on the second day, prices increased by at least 10%, perhaps more!
The yearlings we bought are as follows:
Lot 14 Snitzel / Joy Forever colt (colt partnership)
Lot 53 Exceedance / Legal Eagle colt
Lot 59 Zousain / Liesele filly (filly partnership)
Lot 145 Written Tycoon / Moldova filly (filly partnership)
Lot 146 All Too Hard / Moonchild filly
Lot 150 Russell Revolution / Moralto colt
Lot 186 I Am Invincible / No Evidence Needed colt (colt partnership)
Lot 966 Merchant Navy / In The Vanguard filly
This year we put have put two colts into our colt syndicate. They are as above - Lot 14 the Snitzel colt (below) out of a winning High Chaparral mare Joy Forever from the draft of Westbury Stud and Lot 186 the I am Invincible colt out of Sharmadal mare No Evidence Needed - a Group 2 and Group 3 winner in Australia who was also twice a Group 1 runner up. He was presented by Baramul Stud.
Our Snitzel colt boasts the likes of Group 1 winners Bentley Biscuit and Thorn Park in his family, with plenty of precocity and speed - while our I Am Invincible colt also has a rich pedigree, and looks a Christmas two year old type. His half brother by Snitzel is already four times stakes' placed.
A 10% share in this syndicate will cost about NZ$132,000. Shares in this syndicate are selling very quickly and we only have 25% now available so if you are keen to be involved with what my team considered to be as good a types, with outstanding pedigrees to match their physical presence, that we saw in the sale.
We also are offering a filly syndicate with two really classy fillies.
They are Lot 59 the Zousain filly out of a stakes' winning Exceed and Excel mare Liesele, who won nine times in her career, who we purchased her from Coolmore Stud. She is joined by Lot 145, the Written Tycoon filly out of Moldova (below), a winning Snitzel mare.
Both fillies have beautiful pedigrees, are superbly well-positioned for residual value and have been very popular with only 15% now available.A 10% share in this syndicate will cost about NZ$90,000.
So if you want to be involved with Te Akau, and any of the horses above, let us know urgently please. They all are very well-credentialled and we really bought with attention to detail - for example Lot 53 was great buying, a 10% share in the Exceedance colt below is about $11,300 +GST.
Another interesting filly is Lot 966, a gorgeous Merchant Navy filly, the half sister to our Champion 2YO Sword of State. A 10% in her would be approx. $14,700 +GST.
I would like to thank my team who helped us at the sales - Marcus Corban, Reece Trumper and our vet Jack O'Brien and our trainer Mark Walker who fastidiously studied all the videos of the yearlings on offer.
The colts and fillies are all entered for the Magic Millions' Series and are eligible for a $A3 million 2YO and 3YO race starting this time next year. We bought these horses because we think they will be up to running big races in Australia.
An interesting statistic is there a $1 million race in Australia every four days on average throughout the year and we will be trying to win some of those races.
The past seven days have been magic for our racing team - owners and the crew that looks after them all. It was a very exciting week with our trainer Mark Walker winning five races in 24 hours. This included making history with Te Akau breaking its own record of recording the fastest century of wins in the history of New Zealand racing.
To achieve 100 wins in 5.5 months is quite incredible and an enormous credit to all our team at Te Akau Stud and Te Akau Racing that have worked enormously hard to deliver these results.
Speaking of results, it was another thrilling day on Saturday with Mark winning both a Group 2 and a Group 3 at Trentham - the Group 2 Wellington Guineas with Cognito, a So You Think gelding I purchased from the Magic Millions' Gold Coast Sale.
Belle En Rouge, a home-bred filly we syndicated amongst our owners who won the Group 1 NZ Oaks and was joint Filly of the Year last season, returned to the scene of her greatest victory and was perfectly ridden by Australian jockey Dean Yendall to claim the Group 3 Anniversary Handicap, running the quinella with stablemate Belle of the Ball.
It's been a very exciting time for our owners so a massive congratulations to them.
We arrived back from the Gold Coast on Thursday night and flew straight to Hawke's Bay to attend Jarrod Smith and Bex Palmer's wedding. It was a truly beautiful wedding which was MC'd brilliantly by our daughter Julia Rose.
Back to work on the farm today and our total attention is on both Karaka Million night on Saturday and the Karaka sale which commences on Sunday week.
We are all very excited about the Karaka Million night this year at Pukekohe Park. We have a big team to race and a good number headed to that track today to familiarise themselves before the weekend. We expect to confirm riding engagements on Wednesday.
One thing I am very proud of is, that of the top 20 2YOs in the Karaka Million Order of Entry, we bought 10 of them. All going well, we will have seven runners in the 2YO Million, and Wild Night and Dynastic in the 3YO Karaka Classic that also carries prize money of $1 million - we won this (and the KM double, as well as our sixth consecutive 2YO Million) last year with Pin Me Up.
Talking of the Karaka sales, they will be live streamed on preview channel 200 and Sky Pop up Channel 263. We do hope though if you can make it along to Karaka that you will come and sit with us, and enjoy the selling action in person! You will be made to feel warmly welcome.
While we were away, the farm had 60mls of rain - brilliant for the farm but incredibly difficult for Mark and the stable team who are trying to prepare horses for the races. Because of the heavy tracks, we have been forced to run horses against each other which has been frustrating. At least the forecast for the next weeks looks good.
News from the farm is we are sent 360 lambs to Wilson Hellaby today and we have already sent two units of prime steers to Greenlea this week. We are currently sending 40 steers per unit and we will send two units a week for the next month.
Tomorrow I am the farm but on Wednesday we are back on the road looking at yearlings. We start at 8.30am inspecting Curraghamore's draft (27) then go to Landsdown Park, followed by Woburn Farm at 1.00pm before we head to Te Rapa for the twilight race meeting. Then on Thursday we go to Phoenix Park, Windsor Park, Carlaw Park and Trelawney Stud. On Friday afternoon we look at Cambridge Stud.
Best of luck to all our owners with runners on this week and especially Saturday night and ...