Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

Spring is always my favourite time of the year.  Last night we had 9mls of rain on the farm and the grass is really growing but I have been buying a lot of store cattle in the last three months and there are a lot of mouths to feed.

We have seven racehorses in full training at Te Akau Stud at the moment and I am just on the airstrip watching an Alamosa filly working (using the dictaphone again!!). This filly was a bit light when she arrived here but she has had some good spring grass and some hard feed and she is really muscling up quite nicely.

Jamie Richards is riding the horses today at the farm because I have given Luke Edmonds and his partner Sophie, who normally rides, four days off (by the way they went to the Miley Cyrus concert hmmm - Ed!!). I find it unbelievably satisfying working highly strung horses on the farm and seeing them slowly settle down, seeing them get their heads in the right space and muscle up with the work.

This morning I went right around Te Akau Stud with Luke Copeland who is in charge of all of the cattle on Te Akau Stud and we have been doing a little bit of juggling to make sure that all the cattle are on the best feed available.  Luke is doing an outstanding job.  He has worked for me since he left school 15 years ago and he knows how I think and what I like and how I like the farm run. With the arrival of Luke Edmonds (who we call new Luke) we now call Luke Copeland "old Luke" or Whopper (his other nickname) - but that's a long rugby story we gather!  Old Luke is also really good with highly strung horses and over the years has done a great job handling the colts that have needed a good strong horseman to handle them.

We had a big thrill at the Taupo Races yesterday with No Tricks wining the last race at Taupo most impressively with another beautiful ride from Matt Cameron.  This filly really looks the goods and we are thrilled to have won with the Paul and Cushla Smithies owned filly.   They of course are the proud owners of Puccini who won last season's NZ Derby and was named Champion 3YO of the Year.

We have some really nice chances in at the Matamata races so on Saturday morning Karyn will be heading first thing to Auckland for the First Call programme and I will be heading to Matamata.  On Saturday night I will be meeting Karyn in Auckland and we will be going out for dinner.

Then on Sunday we are heading to the South Island where I will be inspecting the horses that we have down there preparing for the Spring Carnival. Later next week we will be sending another three or four horses down including Flaming who after a really good second in the Gold Trail Stakes will run in the Ray Coupland Stakes before she starts in the 1000 Guineas.

Karyn and I are then going to see some of our South Island owners before we travel to  Queenstown for a couple of days together.