Te Akau Monday Update

Another great weekend at Te Akau although we had no luck at the races on Saturday in New Zealand, we did finish the weekend on a winning note in Singapore on Sunday. It was the last race day of the season in Singapore so it was fantastic for Mark Walker to finish on a top note.  The next race meeting in Singapore is in two weeks' time on the 1 January and we have some really nice horses ready to start the new season on a high.

This weekend we had Sam Boyd and Dave McCarthy staying here with us.  We went to the races at Te Rapa for Waikato Times Gold Cup Day on Saturday.  There was some great racing and we were thrilled to see the Waikato Stud stallions performing so well.  Especially Savabeel who is having a purple patch and I was patting myself on the back because this year so far I have bought eight Savabeels for our owners.

The crowd at Te Rapa on Saturday was not quite as big as last year mainly due, I think, to the new liquor laws where people now are not allowed to take their own alcohol to the races due to the change in the liquor licencing.  Nevertheless it was a great day and some terrific racing was enjoyed by everyone.

Yesterday it rained all day and while this was a terrible result for Ellerslie please do not forget that it was a wonderful result for all the farmers of New Zealand.

This week we are selling the last of our bulls for 2014.  We have four units going.  The price has dropped from $6.50 per kilo to $6.00 but we are still very happy with that.  It is amazing how the cattle have done in the last month and in some cases the weight gains have been in the vicinity of 2.5kgs a day.

Today we are off to see yearlings in Matamata and we started the day at 1.30pm at Mapperley Stud and then we go to Blandford Lodge before we go to spend the night with Mark Chittick at Waikato Stud.  Today Karyn and our youngest daughter Julia-Rose are coming with us.

Tomorrow morning I will be at the Matamata track at 4.30am to watch the horses work and then we are spending the day looking at the Waikato Stud yearlings.

We have a big team of horses trialling this week and we have three of our best horses galloping between races at Matamata on Wednesday - Rockfast, Darci's Dream and Windborne.

The track for the trials tomorrow is going to be absolutely perfect and looks like it will be a genuine Dead 5 and the track on Wednesday at Matamata will also be Dead which will offer a lovely surface for the horses that are racing.

Have a great week!