Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

I have spent the weekend getting everything organised for my trip to Europe.  I leave tonight to fly to London via Los Angeles.

On Friday Steve Autridge, Jamie Richards and I inspected every horse at Te Akau Stud together and then we sat down and talked about each horse. We also looked at all the weanlings and we were rapt to see a paddock with 11 Burgundy fillies in it.

Gee Burgundy is an exciting stallion.  I have had three phone calls in the last couple of weeks from people wanting to buy a Burgundy weanling , a sure sign that word is out for them.   We are going to race all of our Burgundy weanlings,  in total eleven fillies and three colts.

At 5.00pm after we had finished inspecting and discussing all the spelling horses, we opened the bar and had a great chat talking further about the horses for the coming season.

Today I am spending the day on the farm with the team discussing what is going to happen while I am away.  We have a really good fencer who has been working this year on the farm and I am going to spend time with him showing him my next project!

With not many of our horses racing for the next six weeks it is a good time for Karyn and me to have a break.  Karyn is already in Europe and arrived back in London today after five days in Sicily with our two youngest daughters.  We are so lucky to have Robyn Bregmen in the office running everything (she is a great person) and we are also fortunate to have a world class staff to run the farm.

I am so excited about the Spring as we have the best team to race that I can ever remember and of course, the best team to look after our horses.

I enjoyed watching the races on Saturday at Ruakaka and I was thrilled to see Matt Cameron increase his lead in the Jockeys' Premiership. If he stays ahead of Danielle Johnston, and it looks like he will, this will be the second year in a row that Matt wins the Premiership, an amazing effort to defend his title from last season.

Also riding well is one of our most important team members, Te Akau apprentice Dan Miller. Dan is an amazing horseman - he was just a bit too tall for flat riding but is a sensation as a jumps' jockey and on Saturday he won the prestigious Manawatu Steeplechase with what I thought was a gem of a ride.  Dan is also a very good judge of a horse and although he is just 18 years old he will be, in my opinion, a good trainer in years to come.

Te Akau Racing is very proud to have had three champion apprentices - Opie Bosson, Troy Harris and Shafiq Rusof (in Singapore) - "Suppy" as he is known, went from our Matamata stable to become the champion apprentice in Singapore and is again leading the Apprentice Premiership.

Isn't Te Akau Singapore trainer Mark Walker amazing? Another win on Friday night and another last night to stay well clear on the Trainers' Premiership in Singapore - he is eight wins ahead of the next trainers.

Well shortly I will be packing and off to Auckland - we will stay in touch while we are away and of course do check our emails daily.  Karyn tells me the London weather has been quite cold but that the forecast for Royal Ascot is for warm weather!