Te Akau Saturday Update
Date: 25 Feb 2017
David writes:
Well today is a day I have been looking forward to for nearly four weeks!
Yesterday I paid for the 31 yearlings that I bought from the Karaka Sale in full - so that means that I can have my first drink!! What a night it will be because our daughter Julia-Rose recently got engaged to her partner Hamish Hayes and we are having a special celebration party for her young friends tonight in Auckland.
This morning I took a good, young lad - who has just started working at Te Akau Stud - around the farm. I want to work with him for the first three to four weeks so I can be sure that from Day 1 he does things the way I want them done and learns how to do everything properly and with care and conscientiousness. It also gives me a great additional opportunity to inspect all the yearlings that I have bought.
Really it is quite exciting to see the yearlings that we have on the farm. They are simply a stunning group of young horses and I am so proud of the way they all look.
I keep coming back to this Declaration of War colt and the impact he has had on me. Last night I watched the replay of him going through the sale and noted that Lee Freedman, one of the great Australian trainers of all time, was the underbidder on him. That gives me even more confidence in this colt as Lee has trained the winners of five Melbourne Cups.
I think there are only three shares remaining in this colt so if you are keen to get involved in a horse that could win a Group 1 Derby and train on the be a big Cups' horse - this would be the colt to invest in.
There was a heavy dew on the farm this morning and it was quite foggy until about 8.00am but it then turned into a beautiful day.
We are starting to turn our attention firstly to Auckland Cup Week where we hope to have two runners in the Group 1 Derby. Gingernuts is first in order of entry because he qualified automatically for the race by winning the Group 2 Avondale Guineas last weekend. Our other runner Beaumarchais sits one on the ballot and we hope he will get a start. We need one horse to pull out so with any luck Beaumarchais, a Savabeel gelding I bought from the draft of Pencarrow Stud, will get in the field.
The second focus for us is the very strong team we are taking to Brisbane to race in the Winter Carnival here - we will probably have five or six horses which will include Shocking Luck, Heroic Valour and Hall of Fame so that is something to really look forward to.
Shocking Luck is a horse I bought for a Hong Kong client after he ran second in the Group 2 Waikato Guineas. We immediately decided to give him a short spell and he is absolutely thriving at Te Akau Stud in a big paddock with beautiful, green grass - he certainly looks a v very exciting horse.
Best of luck to all our runners at Matamata today and Wairoa tomorrow.
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