Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

It is a another beautiful day here at Te Akau Stud.  What an incredible spell of settled weather.  I just hope that the weather forecasters are accurate when they are predicting rain this coming weekend. The farm is really starting to green up now and with a little bit of rain everything would just look amazing.

This morning we have finished the handling of another six Burgundy foals.  They come in and have a week in the box, they get their feet done, they get drenched, handled and taught to walk as part of the weaning process.  Today they go up into 25 acre paddocks where they grow and develop.  One thing I have noticed with the Burgundy foals is that they have beautiful temperaments and are horses full of real quality.  Burgundy certainly has a real chance to be a success as a sire.

This week we have been taking advantage of the fine weather and have had 15 truckloads of metal spread around gate ways, troughs and we have re-metalled the main race at Te Akau Stud.  We have also been doing a lot of fence repairs and have a full time fencer at the moment helping out our existing staff. Kevin L'Huillier is an amazing fencer.  He used to farm at Te Akau but moved on to a smaller farm at Ngahinapouri.  He is one of those guys that can do anything with his hands and he is doing all the fencing at Te Akau Stud.

Yesterday another two horses had the "fully sold" sign put up on them.  The Savabeel/Kay's Awake colt is now completely sold so now we really only have 5% remaining in the syndicate of three horses (the Fastnet Rock/Myrrh colt, the Snitzel Mini Tales colt and the sales' topping Fastnet Rock/Il Quello Veloce filly)two colts and a small share in the High Chaparral/Absinthe filly as well as our Fastnet Rock/Ocean Pearl colt.

I am sure these shares will sell in the next week and then you can literally say that everything has been sold. It has been a huge success and I am so grateful to all the wonderful new owners that we have and our existing owners that have reinvested with us.

Karyn and I so enjoy having owners out to the farm and showing them their horses and we can see the enjoyment they get out of that plus I always show them around the farm which they find quite exciting.

This afternoon I have New Zealand Bloodstock Chairman, Joe Walls coming to the farm and he is going to inspect all of the yearlings that we bought from the sales, together with Danny Rolston, Sales Manager of New Zealand Bloodstock who will be joining him.  It is great to have other people's views on the yearlings that we bought.  I consider the yearlings that we bought from this year's sale to be right up with any group of young horses that I have seen.

Have a great day and let's pray the weather forecast is accurate.

Also just so you are all aware, as a mark of respect to the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Turf Club has cancelled all races and simulcasts during the period of national mourning.  Therefore, all races in Singapore and all simulcast races from overseas on 25, 27, 28 and 29 March 2015 are cancelled.  The Dester Singapore Three-Year-Old Sprint is rescheduled to Friday, 3 April 2015.