Te Akau Savours Another Special Saturday

Raceform - Richard Edmunds reports:

Exciting Te Akau colt Seize The Day is all alone at the finish of the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes.

There have been many special days for Te Akau Racing over the last couple of decades, but David Ellis has little hesitation in ranking last Saturday as one of the very best.

The Te Akau principal watched with pride from the Inglis sales complex in Sydney as the stable celebrated Group One victories on both sides of the Tasman. 

The first leg of the big double came from Seize The Day, who won the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes at Trentham by four and a half lengths in a scintillating performance that more than lived up to his A$600,000 purchase price and the stable’s long-held belief in his potential.

Just over two hours later, Belle Cheval captured the Vinery Stud Stakes at Rosehill, becoming the first New Zealand-trained winner of a Group One race in Australia since Orchestral in the same race two years ago.

An elite double spanning both sides of the Tasman is not unprecedented for Te Akau, whose former trainer Jamie Richards achieved the same feat in the spring of 2020 with Probabeel (the Epsom Handicap at Randwick) and Melody Belle (Livamol Classic at Hastings). But Ellis nevertheless gives Saturday a prominent position among the tangerine team’s long list of highlights.

“It really was an enormous thrill for all of us,” Ellis told RaceForm on Tuesday. “Probably the very best day in the history of Te Akau was in February of 2020 when we won two Group One races in a 40-minute period at Randwick with Probabeel (Surround Stakes) and Te Akau Shark (Chipping Norton Stakes), but this was right up there.

“Those Group One victories on either side of the Tasman were fantastic, and then the next day in Victoria, Mark Walker had two runners and they both won. So it was a hugely rewarding weekend for all of the team.

“All of our staff put in so much hard work all the way through the season, so it’s great to see them rewarded with the results they deserve.

“Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson are a terrific training partnership, they’ve reached 100 wins for the season in New Zealand again and are up over 400 wins overall, and the team they have around them all do a brilliant job.”

Seeing Belle Cheval perform at such a high level for Walker and Bergerson is particularly satisfying for Ellis, whose paths crossed with the Savabeel filly much earlier in her life.

“I believe this is the first horse we’ve trained for David Archer and Diane Wright,” Ellis said. “They’re fantastic owner-breeders and it’s a big thrill to train such a good filly for them.

“I actually saw her in a paddock at Waikato Stud around 18 months ago, when she was a yearling and rising two, and I absolutely fell in love with her. It’s great that she ended up being part of our stable.”

Back home, Seize The Day added his name to an incredible run of Te Akau success in New Zealand’s two Group One races for two-year-olds.

He became the stable’s eighth winner from the last nine runnings of the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes, following on from Melody Belle (2017), Avantage (2018), Yourdeel (2019), On The Bubbles (2021), Maven Belle (2022), Move To Strike (2024) and La Dorada (2025).

The stable also boasts an exceptional strike rate in the Sistema Stakes at Ellerslie, which they have won seven times in the last decade with Heroic Valour (2016), Sword Of Osman (2018), Yourdeel (2019), Cool Aza Beel (2020), Sword Of State (2021), Return To Conquer (2025) and Lara Antipova (2026).

With the earlier victories by Maroofity in both races in 2003, Te Akau has now swept the Group One two-year-old double on six occasions – twice winning both races with a single horse (Maroofity, Yourdeel) and the rest with two different winners.

Ellis deflects much of the credit for that incredible record to Te Akau’s trainers and staff.

“It comes down to the horsemanship of our team, they give such a good education to these young horses,” he said. “We’re also very fortunate to have absolutely top trackwork riders who play a big part in that as well.

“Our policy with two-year-olds is to let them tell us when they’re ready to race. Two of our very best, Avantage and Melody Belle, had their first starts in October. That was because they were both showing us that they were ready at that early stage. As we know, they went on with it and were still running some of their best races as six-year-olds. But we don’t push them. We let them tell us.”

Seize The Day is the latest two-year-old success story for the operation, having caught the eye of Ellis when offered by Yarraman Park during the 2025 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.

“I was initially drawn to him because we’ve had a lot of luck with progeny of I Am Invincible,” Ellis said. “We’ve obviously had those Group One successes with Imperatriz and Move To Strike, and he’s just a really fantastic sire.

“Seize The Day was a stunning colt and I took Karyn (Fenton-Ellis, wife) to have a look at him. I said to her, ‘I’m not going to miss this colt.’

“From when we first broke him in, everyone in the stable has really loved him. We didn’t push him in the spring – he was showing us that he wasn’t quite ready, so we turned him out and gave him a good spell. That’s been the making of him. Opie (Bosson, jockey) has always been hugely impressed with the feel he gives him in trackwork.

“He showed on Saturday that he’s a proper horse. We’ve had some very big offers for him, but he’s not for sale. We’ll aim to have him in our Melbourne stable in the spring, and I think he’s got an exciting three-year-old season ahead of him.

“He’s looking like another colt that can go to stud at the conclusion of his racing career, joining six others that I bought as yearlings that are currently standing at stud or about to start stud careers (Embellish, Noverre, Xtravagant, Cool Aza Beel, Move To Strike and Return To Conquer). That’s something we’re very proud of too.”

Results like Saturday’s Group One double provide perfect advertising for a syndicator like Te Akau, with shares still available across their many yearling purchases at Karaka, the Gold Coast and now Sydney.

“We’ve spent more than $11 million on yearlings this year and we still have about $2 million worth of shares left to sell, but we’re thrilled with how it’s all going,” Ellis said. “We’ve got a lot of new owners coming on board, plus continued investment from our existing owners.

“We bought another I Am Invincible yearling in Sydney this week (a filly out of the Snitzel mare Meuse, bought for A$360,000), and as of Tuesday afternoon she’s already 70 percent sold.

“The horses are all bought on spec. We want to train the best horses, and if you want to do that, you’ve got to go and buy them. It’s an approach that’s served us well over the years.”