Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

Well I cannot describe what a proud and fun weekend we had with our first family wedding. My eldest daughter Joanna married Leon Hewertson at a lovely venue right on the waterfront at Matakana which is about half an hour drive out from Warkworth and about one and a half hours' drive north of Auckland.

I cannot describe the privilege and the honour it was to lead my beautiful daughter up the aisle and give her away at the start of an old fashioned wedding service.  The whole afternoon and evening was a lot of fun and we finished up dancing until the early hours of the morning.  As you can see Joanna looked absolutely beautiful and the sad thing is that with our other children there we could not do three for the price of one (ha ha).

We also had a great racing weekend with wins again in New Zealand and in Singapore. The colt that won the two year old race in New Zealand is an Exceed and Excel colt out of Alamantra who is the daughter of the great Zabeel mare Champagne. Now named Unsurpassed, our stable rider Matt Cameron reported to me that the colt gave him an awesome feel, had been extremely well educated by Jason and the team and was a real professional.  Safely through this race he will run in the Listed Matamata Slipper and then the Group 1 Diamond Stakes at Ellerslie, followed by the Group 1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes.

After the Karaka Sale in January last year where I bought 43 yearlings, I spent each night for the next week going around and inspecting all the yearlings.  It became quickly apparent to me that I had bought the best group of yearlings ever but that they were more three year old types.  In other words horses that would not race until they were late two year olds but that would grow and mature and develop into particularly nice three year olds that would compete in Guineas, Derbies and Oaks and that would train on to be Cup horses at four.  That is why I travelled to the Sydney Sale, in search of some added precocity.

We have a good number of young horses at either our Matamata stable or that are out spelling on the farm here that have all shown plenty of ability.  They are just not early natural two year olds and if you push them you ruin them.  The Te Akau policy has always been that we simply wait until each two year old tells us that he or she is ready to go to the races. So with all these later maturing horses I decided to go to Sydney and I deliberately purchased a two year old speed sort of colt.

When I was in the outside parade ring I spotted Unsurpassed and tried to buy him from his breeder Bob Emery.  The colt was passed in and within 24 hours I had bought the colt and it was a big thrill to see him win his first start at Hawera yesterday.  With these youngsters you would never know what they beat but nevertheless he still has a lot of improvement in him yet. We will more than likely give him a run in three weeks at Te Rapa and then take on stakes' company as I mentioned.

Today at the farm we bade goodbye to Amalie Larsen as she leaves to go back to her family in Denmark after twelve months of helping us breaking in horses and working at Te Akau Stud.  For a young lady of just 20 years of age she has been exceptional in the work that she has done and we will miss her greatly.  Interestingly enough she is going back to Denmark study law and the university there is 100% free.  On the other hand however, that is probably why the average tax rate in Denmark is over 60%.

Tomorrow we are out looking at yearlings again and we are going to Lyndhurst Farm, Wentwood Grange and Longlands. Then on Thursday we are going to Wellington and on Friday we will be doing horses in the Wairarapa/Masterton area and then we will be attending the Wellington races on Saturday.

This time next week Mark Walker will be in New Zealand for a couple of weeks for the yearling sales and we are all looking forward to welcoming him back.

Talking farming now - last Friday we had the distinction of topping the five year old ewe fair at Kauroa which was exciting but we were disappointed with the price that we got, which I think from memory was about $85. They were absolutely magnificent ewes.  Each one had reared at least one lamb in each year for her entire life and I will be really confident that who ever bought them will get 165% lambing.

It is incredible that wherever I go people tell me they enjoy reading about the farm and what we are doing.  So in further farming news - you would not believe it but last week I was having dinner at Pencarrow Stud and the rain came. They had 30 mls of rain in three hours.  I kept ringing Te Akau Stud to see if we were getting it and we did not get any rain at all.  Even on Sunday at Te Akau South they had 10mls of rain but we missed it.  One of the boys on the farm assured me that there is a big low coming over for this weekend (hopefully not for the Te Rapa races - Ed!!) and that there will be some rain.  It is starting to get dry although we still have plenty of grass and the stock are in great condition.

I thought you would enjoy this photo (and the main picture) of horses in work at Te Akau Stud this morning.  We worked them this morning in groups of four thanks to Jamie Richards being on hand.

We have one unit of bulls going this week and that is it until the end of May when we will have a few more to sell.  We have averaged over $2,100 now for our bulls and $2,135 for our steers which is a record for us.

Our whole week is going to be spent on getting ready for the yearling sales whether it is getting further research on pedigrees or looking at yearlings for the last time before we start looking at our selections for the second time. If you would like a catalogue for the Karaka Sales I have a few spare ones in my office so if you email Karyn we will have no trouble sending them to you.

Te Akau Racing is again this year the sponsor of the Karaka Premier Sale television coverage on Sky and Trackside on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 January.  Karyn will again be hosting for Trackside (this year with Aidan Rodley) and I will supply more details for you shortly.  If you can't join us at the sale (which we would love you to do) make sure you catch the television coverage - it is really very well done.