Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

Well the wild weather continued overnight - luckily no problems here at Te Akau but with gale force winds, slips on the road to Hamilton and about 100 mls of rain - it was an abrupt reminder that winter is nigh.

Interestingly enough the days have turned out crackers - warm and mild in direct contrast to the night times.

Today we said farewell to five more of our young horses that we have finished breaking in - they left this morning to join our stable team for the very first time.  I was really impressed with how professional they all were as they went onto the Majestic float to be taken to Matamata.  James Jackson has done an outstanding job with them as we draw closer to concluding breaking in at Te Akau Stud.

James isn't finished yet though - he still has some striking individuals on his hands, finalising their breaking including our O'Reilly/Grand Echezeaux colt who is the half brother to Darci Brahma, Burgundy and Saperavi.  He is also breaking in a very nice Zabeel colt out of Miss Zapper and of course soon will commence the first steps with our two yearlings from Australia.

Our Fastnet Rock filly and O'Reilly colt that I purchased from the Gold Coast Sale arrived home at about 5.30pm last night and we tucked them away for the night in a warm stable.  Today they experienced the paddocks at Te Akau for the first time and we will give them a couple of days' breather before we start to break them in - needless to say, coming from Queensland we have two nice, warm, new winter covers for them both!

Today was another busy day on the farm - business meetings this morning, horses departing and a couple arriving and in the afternoon I was out on the farm with our team.  We have two new staff who have joined us recently - Luke who is in charge of the horses and Sophie his partner.  They are both terrific young people, always smiling and happy and are wonderful additions to our stud team.

Karyn was in town today for a dental visit and took Lydia with her to remind her of the sights of Hamilton.  She had to also pick up her new reading glasses, with Hilton the hound having made off with the ones she only got a month ago!

Tonight we have Derek Bregmen for dinner - Derek of course is Robyn's (our Administration Manager) husband as well as our neighbour.  Robyn has now been in Europe for four weeks and is due back into New Zealand next week and back in the office on Monday week.  We have missed her and it will be terrific welcoming her back - but at the same time we know she has had an amazing time.  A wonderful holiday that she truly deserved.