Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

Gee isn't it a busy time as we lead up to Christmas at this time of year?  There seems to be something on all the time.

Tomorrow I am going to Matamata to have a look at all the horses that are racing over the holiday season. Between Wednesday and 2 January Steve and Jamie will have 30 horses to race.  it is a great time of the year to race horses - I always think September and October are the two hardest months of the year to win races and slowly it gets easier as the season progresses.  The number of times we have won a  maiden race at Taupo and you look back and the first four horses in the race all finish up winning Group races by the end of the season.

Also tomorrow we are parading Xtravagant for television crews that want to do a story on him for the network news.  I always love this sort of promotion for a number of reasons but mainly because we are dealing with an audience that is outside of racing and I always finish up getting a lot of new interest in ownership with these sort of stories.  I also love it because we are trying to promote Xtravagant for a stud career and the more publicity that he can get the more mares he will get in years to come.

Darci Brahma has had yet another really top season and is the leading sire in New Zealand and just as importantly the leading sire in Singapore.  This is an amazing achievement and brings me back to the day that Marks Walker and I bought Darci Brahma.  We went to $1.1 million to buy him.  The under bidder was Coolmore Stud and in hindsight wouldn't it have been a disaster if Darci was not available to New Zealand breeders?

I am quite excited going around looking at the yearlings also by Rock'n'Pop and Burgundy.  Burgundy stands at Cambridge Stud and Rock'n'Pop at Waikato Stud and our goal is to have a stallion at all our leading studs in New Zealand in years to come. It is absolutely essential if our industry has any hope of turning the corner that we have new stallions standing at stud every year.

Xtravagant will race over 1400m at Ellerslie on Boxing Day and it is then our plan to give him his next start at Trentham in the Levin Stakes. This used to the old Bayer Classic and is a Group One race which has been won by some of our great three years olds over the years.

Xtravagant is absolutely thriving and really enjoying life and is ridden every morning by Dan Miller one of the very best riders Te Akau has ever employed.  Our other good colt Scrutinize was very impressive winning at Awapuni over 1400 metres. Isn't he an exciting colt too?

It is quite unbelievable that horses that I have purchased and syndicated are now the hot favourite for the Australian Derby at Randwick and another colt for the New Zealand Derby at Ellerslie.  Now that is an achievement that I am incredibly proud of.

This week at the farm we are busy topping the paddocks, tidying them up so that they are all in great shape for the yearlings when they come home from the sale. We are also busy handling 21 foals that we have on the farm and each week we bring six or seven in , drench them, do their feet, handle them teach them to lead, teach them to tie up and generally make them happy foals.

We will be branding them in three to four weeks' time and then we start weaning towards the end of February.  We also have a very good fencer working for us who has just built a new horse paddock and is doing quite a bit of repair fencing around the farm.

We have really enjoyed having Mark Walker here to stay for the last week and today his wife Julia and children Zavier and Alexis arrive at the farm for a weeks holiday.  It will be so much fun having them here for Christmas Day.

As we head towards Christmas it gives me time to reflect on the past year which certainly has been vintage year for Te AKau Racing.  I am incredibly proud of all the team that work for Te Akau.  We have the best staff in the company's history and that is reflected in the way the horses are performing on race day.  I have always said that the staff that get out of bed at 3.30am every morning to work the horses are the true heroes of our industry.  To the other first equal part of the equation are our owners who put so much confidence and faith into allowing us to buy these beautiful horses that we have to train.

So to you all I wish you a very happy Christmas and all the very best for a happy and successful 2016.  Let's hope the tangerine continues on its winning way.