Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

There is always a smile on a farmers face when there is rain in December and yesterday we had 20mls. All the paddocks that were cut for hay just look absolutely amazing and the stock are thriving. Yesterday we inspected yearlings at Jamieson Park which is owned by James Chapman and managed by Sam Munro. It's a beautifully set up boutique operation inland from Te Kauwhata. He had five nice yearlings on show and they have some really nice horses in work with Te Akau Racing.

We then moved on to Westbury Stud which is now owned by an Australian businessman Gerry Harvey, who also owns the Magic Million sales company and the Harvey Norman chain. We saw some very nice horses there and their draft was well prepared for early December. We finished the day off at Hallmark Stud where Mark Baker had a really good, well educated draft. He had the probably the best yearling I have seen at the sale parades so far this year and funnily enough it was a beautiful colt by Darci Brahma, one of the nicest Darci's I have ever seen!

Talking about Darci Brahma, I now see he is the leading sire in New Zealand which is a great achievement for the horse. It's so exciting training these Darci Brahmas as all they want to do is sleep, eat, work really well and all the staff love them due to their great attitudes.

Tomorrow we are off to Trelawney Stud to see their draft of yearlings, as you know Trelawney Stud is one the of the great thoroughbred nurseries in the world, already producing five Melbourne Cup winners from this property. I always try buy yearlings from Trelawney and one good horse that comes to mind is the champion Singapore 2YO and 3YO War Affair by O'Reilly who I think has only been beaten on three occasions from around 12 starts, he is close to a superstar in Singapore.

We have sent another four units of cattle to the works this week (140 head) and even though the price has dropped the cattle are still putting on more weight, meaning they are still worth  more. I had a very exciting phone call this morning from my great buddy in Hawkes Bay Peter Grieve, Peter has 33mls of rain overnight on his farm and that was desperately needed in Hawkes Bay which will make it much harder for exporters to reduce the price of cattle and less urgency on farmers to kill stock before Christmas.

Each night after work I have been going for a walk around the mares and foals, gee we have some magnificent foals this year on the farm. I must say that both Burgundy and Rock ‘n' Pop are both real chances to make it as successful stallions going by the foals they have sired to date. The Waikato now has a tremendous amount of grass and the problem for most farmers is controlling the feed that has been growing.

Tonight we have two great friends coming to stay, Sam Boyd who has worked with me at Te Akau Stud for 30 years and Dave McCarthy. They are here for a week so you can imagine I had an alcohol free day yesterday in anticipation.

Looking towards the weekend we are really looking forward to the Waikato Times Gold Cup meeting at Te Rapa, hope to see you there!

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