Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

It's been quite a quiet weekend for Te Akau on the racing front with no New Zealand runners over the weekend.  As you know, this time of the year is a relatively quiet one for the team as the majority of our horses are taking a well-earned break while others are starting their preparations towards the new season.

Horses such as impressive juveniles Hall of Fame and Heroic Valour are back in the stable and looking great, Xtravagant is feeling 1000% and looks in terrific order - he will head straight to Melbourne for his Spring racing and other horses such as Sassy 'n' Smart are also gearing up as we soon turn our focus to the Christchurch Cup Week lead up.

I don't like to single out horses as we have seen so many give of their very best to achieve our current 103 tally of winners.   That gives Steve and Jamie and the team a lead of nine wins on the Trainers' Premiership.

We have been proud of them all!  Obviously we take huge pride in our four Group 1 wins recorded by three individual horses in Xtravagant (x2), the unbeaten Heroic Valour and Risque, as well as our other six black type successes - but every winner has been important to us as we know how happy all of their owners have been.

It was also a relatively quiet weekend for Mark Walker and our Singapore team and whilst it was a rare weekend without a win - most of Mark's horses, many of which had copped awful draws, turned in good performances with quite a number of minor placings.

Probably the only "not so quiet" part of the weekend was Karyn and my 12th wedding anniversary which we celebrated with some friends in Auckland on Saturday night.  It was a great night and we had lots of fun.  Then on Sunday it was home for me while Karyn took a plane to Timaru to visit her mother this week before we head away a week today on holiday.

I'm busy on the farm all day today as we ensure that everyone has their "riding instructions" for whilst we are away and tomorrow I will have the Matamata team out at the farm to inspect all the spelling horses with me.