Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

Over the last couple of weeks a lot of people have asked me what has happened to Vive La Difference so I thought I would show you by photo exactly what she is doing.

After her very good race for second at Te Rapa, Vive La Difference (3f Choisir / L'Artiste) - (who we know as Sophie) lightened up a little bit so we brought her home to the farm and gave her a ten day spell and since that spell she has been in work on the farm for the last two weeks.

We will work her here on Friday and Saturday morning, give her Sunday off, work her on Monday and then she will go back into the stable.  We  find that this variety of work, works wonders with fillies who really enjoy working around the farm.

We start off by giving them two miles of trotting, then two miles of pace work and then they go for an hour's walk around the farm.  By the time a horse has finished doing that they are just so relaxed and happy.  And if a horse is happy they will eat and they will be in the right frame of mind to race well.

Vive La Difference is a filly that has shown a lot of potential and has raced really well and we believe she will finish up winning black type races.

We have Sophia and Amalie riding work each day. Vive la Difference is being ridden by Amalie who is a young woman who is living with us in our house and she is all the way from Denmark.  As you can see both Sophia and Amalie ride beautiful work, they are nice and light and they get on so well with these horses.

Our Te Akau horses that raced in the South Island horses have been home spelling at Te Akau Stud for two weeks and are now going back into work - Darci's Dream, Flaming, Madame Jamai and Bronte Lass.  We also have three horses that have been training at Te Akau Stud that likewise are going back into the Matamata stable this morning.

Today we are going to take the covers off all the horses that are spelling and check them over. We also have the hay contractors cutting the hay today.