Te Akau Owners of the Month

Ian & Wendy Jeffery (pictured 4th & 5th from left Wendy in green jacket/Ian with blue tie) from Waipukurau, understand what it must be like to be a horse trainer.

For although they are not horse trainers their business running Gemini Kennels for the past twenty-eight years required the same round the clock activities of training, feeding, trading, and transporting some of the very best sheep dogs all over the world.

When Ian hurt his back and sold the farm, the pair bred sheep dogs (95% heading dogs and 5% huntaways).

“But a couple of years ago we decided to just trade older dogs so we could go away for a holiday,” said Ian. “We found that for twenty years we never went away at all - just stayed home and worked, but now we can go away and watch horses racing. Sometimes, going to dog trials we'd be up at 3am and feeding when we came home up until 11pm at night, basically we worked from daylight until dark seven days a week.

“We've had as many as 187 dogs, in a complex like a racing stable, and while it's now scaled down we still buy some pups as long as we know the breeding - a bit like racehorses - and then trade them on. I'd go to Auckland once a month to send dogs to Australia, South Africa, Falkland Islands, England, Scotland, Japan, Singapore, all over the world. I'd be away a couple of days, take up twenty and might pick up a dozen on the way home. I'd buy dogs for anywhere between $1500 and $4000 and find a buyer, which I would often find in a week. I've got dog stud books going back to the 1940s and all the dogs have breeding papers. We had about a dozen or fifteen brood-bitches ourselves.

“Country Calendar did a programme here about four or five years ago and the show was the highest rating of the year for Country Calendar. That was all well, but after the TV show came on we had that many phone calls that within a month all of the one-hundred and thirty dogs were gone.

“I've always been keen on horses, since childhood and getting into horses we thought it was important to cut back on work and enjoy life a bit more. Since then we've done four or five cruises on boats and just come back from a couple of weeks in Singapore.

“Mark (Walker) showed us around the stables, it was magnificent and being keen on horses we thought Singapore was wonderful. We've got a couple of horses in Singapore [Fiscal Wings & Bespoke] and we absolutely love it. The prize money is so good and we get $900 just for racing a horse, it's pretty good going and the facilities, racing and crowds over there are all good. Going to the races in Singapore is just out of this world. We think that having the Te Akau stables in Singapore is a good thing and Mark (Walker) is winning races at every meeting, plus a lot of seconds. We enjoyed our trip and we'll be going back there again.

Like many, Ian remembers the early days of racing broadcasts on the radio.

“I used to ride a farm hack and leaving school at fifteen although I was too young to bet I'd always listen to the races on a Saturday.

The first horse Ian raced was a winner; Teawa Mac (Bolak - Gypsy Queen, by Copenhagen II) scored twice as a two-year-old in 1981 with Tony Williams, and Bill Skelton, in the saddle. And Teawa Lad (Nuclear Pulse - Meleina Decree, by Divine Decree) won four times.

Sometime later they joined the Te Akau team.

“If it wasn't for Wendy we wouldn't have been in the Burgundy syndicate,” said Ian. “Wendy had seen him advertised on television, got in touch and we got involved in the breeding syndicate for that year.

“Burgundy, Bespoke, Fiscal Wings, and Power Climber, in the same year we went into Imperial Miss as well. Sebrose from the sales in Australia. The name we submitted was chosen for him. We have a share in Spellbinder, Aspen, Longbeach, Rise ‘n' Shine, and more recently the 2013 Breeding Syndicate which is Bordeaux, Imperium, Fastnet Gold, and Rockfast.

“David (Ellis) was so good to us, taking us around all the horses at the stud and we have been interested in getting into the good horses by top sires. Cheap horses cost just as much as the dearer ones in the end, and the motto in our business has been to ‘buy good and be good'. So it was when Wendy got us involved in the syndicate with Burgundy.

“We saw Burgundy race seven times, including five of his seven wins. Having young horses, only four of our horses have raced so far and we have a lot to look forward to starting this spring.

“Our whole life now centres round the horses we have with Te Akau. It's changed our lives, if we didn't have the horses and our interest with Te Akau I don't know quite what we'd be doing. We click on to the website everyday and love reading David's reports of what's happening around the farm and with the horses. We get all the reports from Jason (Bridgman) and he's a top man sending out all the updates.

“Wendy has kept a scrapbook of all the reports and times horses run when they race. All our horses have a separate folder. Our office here has virtually turned into a Te Akau office.

“We call into the stables at Matamata any time we're going through and have a look at the horses, but otherwise we think the information we get is marvellous. Now that Burgundy is standing at Cambridge Stud, we've arranged to go up to the open day at 1.30pm on Sunday August 11. It'll be nice to see Burgundy, where he is at stud, and we'll look forward to buying into a horse by Burgundy in two or three years.

“I've been involved with four trainers before now and what impresses me with Te Akau is the communications between the owners and the stables and the stud. Robyn (Bregman) and Karyn (Fenton-Ellis) up at the stud are marvellous. If you phone them up they treat you like one of the family. Whereas other trainers just want the bill paid at the end of the month, but you get nothing else extra. Every time you come off talking on the phone to Te Akau you're on a high.

“We've got a little dog, an Australian terrier called Jimmy, and Karyn loves him. Every time we get communication from her it's always Ian, Wendy, and Jimmy. When we travel he comes with us and sleeps in the back of the truck. He's been to Te Akau three or four times. Karyn had a present for him one day and that really gave us a kick, and little things like that go along way.

“David (Ellis) takes you around the farm, no trouble, shows you all the horses and the sheep and cattle which I'm interested in, both being farmers. Everything falls into place and you come away from there and feel as though you've been in paradise. You're on a high driving home.

“It's the same when you go to the stables; you get greeted by these young people that are pleased to see you and can't do enough for you. There are staff members that have been there for a long time and they all seem happy. And whether you own a small share in a horse, or a large share they all treat you the same.

“We feel on top of the world anytime we have anything to do with Te Akau. I mean the group of people in Burgundy were absolutely marvellous and we got to know a few - they're just a happy bunch of people. We would stick together a bit at the races and go and have a drink, they'd come from everywhere: Tauranga, Auckland, Palmerston, Wanganui, and we felt good being amongst them. It's a good sport and we get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Story credit - Jeff Dore

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