Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

What a simply beautiful weekend we have had at Te Akau with the trees starting to blossom, the roses starting to flower, the leaves coming back on all the trees and most importantly the grass is really growing.

With no racing in New Zealand and none in Singapore on Sunday night I took the opportunity of going right around the farm and I have never been so happy.  The grass is really growing and the lambs just love the sun.  All the stock are thriving and look great.

The weekend started off in a very busy fashion with a visit from our local Member of Parliament Barbara Kuriger on Friday afternoon.  She was accompanied by Member of Parliament Todd Barclay who took over from Rt Hon Bill English as Clutha-Southland MP at the last election (main picture).

Todd would be one of the younger MP's in the House and really impressed Karyn and me.  Currently he is Deputy Chair of the Law and Order Select Committee and a member of the Primary Production Select Committee.

Todd was raised in Dipton and Gore. Todd was Deputy Head Boy at Gore High School, and studied at Victoria University of Wellington. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Commercial Law and minor in Management.

Barbara is the current MP for Taranaki-King Country, and a shareholder in two family owned farming businesses.  Elected in 2014, she is our local MP and has a lot of rural experience.   She was named the 2012 Dairy Woman of the Year and has been a member of the Boards of DairyNZ, Primary ITO Board, Taratahi, Dairy Women's Network, and NZ Young Farmers.

Barbara is the Deputy Chair of the Health Select Committee, as well as being a member of the Primary Production Select Committee. This year she was elected Chair of the New Zealand Parliamentarians' Group on Population and Development.

It was a very valuable opportunity to discuss the status of the racing industry and both MPs told me that they learned a great deal.  That night I attended a fundraiser for Te Akau Primary School that featured both MPs joined by Todd Muller (MP for Bay of Plenty) at the local sports' complex.

As usual the weekend started off in fine style in Singapore with Mark Walker having yet another winner.  With ten meetings still to run Mark is five in front in the premiership with the strong likelihood of him getting another win after an inquiry.  One of our horses finished second in a race where I am told that the winner has returned a positive.  If that is the case we will get another win.

We have lots of new horses ready to start in Singapore in the next month so it is going to be a really exciting finishing month to the season.  Mark is really fired up and is the first trainer at the track at Kranji each morning and he deserves all the success he gets because he is an absolute workaholic.

On Sunday night we also welcomed Catherine Hayes to the farm for the first time - she is Hamish's (Julia-Rose's partner) mother and we had a lovely evening together.

Today we were to have 22 horses trialling at Te Teko but unfortunately the trials have been cancelled.  I am spending the afternoon at our Matamata stable inspecting all the horses with Steve and Jamie and Julia-Rose is with me as chief photographer!

We do have some nice chances with horses to race this week at Te Rapa, Hawkes Bay and Riccarton.  I am going down to Hawkes Bay for the weekend with Julia-Rose and Hamish while Karyn has her first "Weigh In" show on Sunday morning at 10am.

The months of July, August and September are always really difficult for New Zealand racing.  Once we get into October, the tracks improve and everybody seems to have a spring in their step because the horses look better, there is less mud and there are better conditions for the staff to work in and Group One racing is just around the corner.

I am really looking forward to Hawke's Bay on Saturday.  There has been a lot of talk about the Hawke's Bay track and the safety concerns around its last meeting that was cancelled.  The one thing that I was surprised about at Hawke's Bay with that abandonment is that it seems that the Chairman of Stewards (Racing Integrity Unit) and the jockeys failed to inspect the surface which clearly under the rules of racing they should have done.

Also looking at it on trackside it seemed to me that the trainers' representatives and the club itself appeared to be precluded from being part of the initial discussions with the stewards.  If the jockeys said they were happy to continue riding after the groundhog had been put through the track from say the 1200m to the 400m mark, I find it incredible that racing did not proceed.

To my way of thinking this is bureaucracy gone mad! Anyway I think everybody in the industry wishes Hawke's Bay Racing the best of luck for this weekend.  It is a disaster for a medium sized club to lose its second biggest day of the year so let's hope that it's a great day on Saturday.

With regard to the positioning of he cancelled races I tend to think they have got it about right although I did feel sorry for NZTR because they were on a hiding to nothing and it would have been impossible for them to have kept all trainers and owners happy.

On Friday we had Sir Patrick Hogan and his Racing Manager Barry Lee out to the farm for lunch. I took the opportunity to show Sir Patrick and Barry the Burgundy yearlings that we have and I think they were very impressed.

It was not a good 24 hours for Sir Patrick because within 24 hours he had lost a truly magnificent horse in Zabeel.

The first Zabeel I bought was a filly in 1998 - she was out of Lady Bay and was named Let's Cruise.  I bought her for $40,000 and she was a fantastic filly.  She won on 1 February as a two year old at Te Rapa by a couple of lengths, probably one of Zabeel's earliest and most precocious horses. She was only a tiny filly about 15 hands at the most but she went on to win the Champion Stakes at Ellerslie when ridden by Jim Collett and she beat some pretty good horses that day including Giovanna and Sarwatch.

Have a great week.  I can't want to see the tangerine back in the winner's circle towards the end of the week.