Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

It's been a week of placings for Te Akau Racing but the main thing is that most of the horses raced really well and it was of immense excitement to see Brer race so well when running 2nd in the Hawkes Bay Steeplechase. We watched the race from Te Rapa where we thought he had it won but was beaten by a better horse on the day.  Nevertheless his jumping is quite spectacular to watch and he is going to win a race very shortly.

It's the time of the year when a lot of the team take their holidays. Steve and Lynley have been to Europe and particularly enjoyed their time in Ireland and now it's time for Jamie to have his winter holiday. He spent the weekend in Singapore with Mark Walker and tomorrow flies to China where he and our youngest daughter Julia-Rose are representing Te Akau Racing in Inner Mongolia where we are sponsoring a Group 3 race at their Carnival.

Personally I would have loved to have  gone to see how racing is progressing in China where they don't have the totalisator but do have equilisator betting and I will be really looking forward to getting a report from Julia-Rose and Jamie on the racing situation there.

We still have a few horses left to race this season but with the heavy tracks that we have now, our focus turns to next season. We are really excited about the new season and look to see more activity from our 2 year olds. We have a very exciting team of horses some of which will be at the Te Teko trials in early August and some towards the end of August.

Heroic Valour is coming up enormous, look for this exciting colt to explode this Spring. The Champion 2YO award in New Zealand is going to be very close this year but Heroic Valour does deserve this award in my opinion as he is unbeaten. He beat the best Group 1 Diamond Stakes field assembled for many years (according to the media) and most importantly he also won the Listed Slipper at Matamata on Breeders' Stakes' Day. He is the only 2yo finalist in New Zealand to have won TWO black type races whereas the other finalists were well beaten on a number of occasions.

It is going to be close for sure but I don't go along with the argument that a Queensland Group One rates higher than the Diamond Stakes. They are both Grade One races, end of story. A few years ago when Darci Brahma won the JJ Atkins Stakes, it was a handicap race and the race was on the verge of being downgraded to a Group 2 but they switched the race to a set weights' race which enabled it to stay as a Group One race.  As in the year Darci Brahma won the JJ Atkins mile in Brisbane, the field that year (like the field this year) was probably only a Group 2 quality-at-best field.  However what Darci Brahma had in his favour when he was Champion 2YO was that he also won the Listed Slipper at Matamata and he ran 2nd in the Gropup 1 Diamond Stakes making him a dominant 2YO of the Year.

Other news is that we did a blast from the past on YouTube which was very well done by Julia-Rose and it was of Hamlet's Ghost winning at Matamata. The video has received over 10,000 hits already with many comments. Hamlet's Ghost was ridden that day by our Champion Apprentice Troy Harris. Troy these days works for the successful Stephen Marsh stable and is doing a great job for that team. It is one of racing's tragedies that Troy wasn't 6kgs lighter because boy could he ride a horse, with beautiful balance and the horses really ran for him.

Talking of champions, the good news is that Dan Miller is OK after having two falls at Hawkes Bay on Saturday. Dan is one of the most important members of the team at Matamata and he is hopeful that he will be back at work within two weeks.

We have had four frosts over the last four days at the farm and very cold mornings but absolutely beautifully clear, fine days. I went right round the farm today and in every paddock with all my team members here, it looks terrific. Tonight Karyn and I fly out for our winter holiday in Hawaii.