Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

Celebrations all round at Te Akau Stud today as it is Karyn's and my 10th wedding anniversary - yes 10 years ago today we married in Wellington and it is quite alarming how quickly those 10 years have gone.

We are certainly a very lucky couple having such great family and special friends around us and the fact that we both work together in an industry that is also our hobby and passion makes us very lucky people.

We are going to "open the bar" a little earlier today and we will be having a few champagnes with some of our very dear friends.  We have two special friends who are celebrating milestone birthdays next month and as we won't be here, we have asked them to join us.  Our London based daughter Lydia and her partner Mitch came home from the South Island last night as they still waits for those elusive visas to arrive!  Sam Boyd will also be joining us as he will be staying at the farm while we are away.

It will be nice to have a celebration together as it has been a tough week as our old dog Tom has been diagnosed with congestive heart disease and we are all very sad about that - he's a great old dog.  He was a dog Karyn rescued about ten and a half years ago and everyone who has visited us here will know him (he's the black and white boy).  He has medication that is making him comfortable and the very good thing is that he is happy in himself although the vet told Karyn he probably won't see Christmas.  It will be good to have Sam here to keep an eye on him in our absence.

But before we think about celebrating there is work to do - this morning we are going to inspect every horse individually that is on the farm.  Then I have my personal trainer coming to the farm to train me and we are going for my personal best on the treadmill this morning - and to do that we need to break six kilometres in one hour, up and incline of 3.5 on the treadmill.

Today I will also be going through all of our broodmare matings and making the final plans for the upcoming breeding season.

Our Racing Manager Jamie Richards has his second race day ride for the season in an amateur race at Wingatui today where he is riding a horse for his father.  Jamie had his first ride since 2011 last week when he won on Highly Likely in what was a very good ride.  It will be Jamie's eighth amateur ride and he will be looking to go back to back.  We will be watching and cheering him home!

There is certainly plenty happening all around at Te Akau today.