Te Akau Thursday Update
23 April, 2015
David writes:
I just love this time of year, beautiful warm days, clear skies, plenty of green grass. It is a great time of the year to bring the maintenance of the farm up to scratch before winter.
On top of the maintenance, we have been busy this week as the breaking in continues and we are working 22 youngsters at the moment. This year I think we all agree we have the best group of yearlings we have seen to ever break in at Te Akau Stud. Some stunning yearlings and I just can't wait for the spring when the racing starts to get really interesting again and the Te Teko trials when the 2 year olds start trialling.
This week we have had eight Rock 'n' Pop foals that are now weanlings that have been boxed, had their feet trimmed, been drenched and been handled and educated where they are taught to lead and tie up. Today we put them out in some nice paddocks.
Both Rock 'n' Pop and Burgundy have really stamped their progeny and I think they are two promising sires that are standing this season at what I think is terrific value for money.
Tomorrow we are taking the Coats Choice colt from the South Island Sale and the O'Reilly colt from Sydney for an outing to try a new form of marketing them - watch this space!
The two horses that we bought in the South Island bought our tally of yearlings purchased so far this season to 47 so it's been a very busy time for us all. This morning we have welcomed more owners to the farm and one excited young couple who sharemilk who have taken a share in our Savabeel/Lego filly. I love seeing young people getting involved in racing and find it gives me a lot of pleasure to see them buy into such good quality horses.
Tomorrow morning Karyn and I are going to Philip Vela's funeral then in the afternoon we have a syndicate of owners that invested in Rock 'n' Pop coming to the farm to see their foals and to have some refreshments to celebrate the terrific young horses.
By Saturday morning we will have sold over 400 cattle this week as I have been working towards getting our numbers down to a level that we want for the winter. Normally we don't sell these cattle until June but the price of cattle is so good that I felt I would rather keep the precious autumn feed for the cattle we want to sell in the spring, when it appears there will be a huge worldwide shortage of beef.
On Saturday morning we have the last truck of fertilizer going on then I am off to the Te Rapa races where we have Rockfast running in the 3YO mile then Abidewithme in the Group 2 Travis Stakes. This meeting is staged by the Cambridge Jockey Club and is one of the best you will see at Te Rapa. The first time I attended this meeting in 1971, I went there with $22 in my pocket and came home with $250. That was my first time at Te Rapa and I can still remember the horses that I backed, who rode them and the trainers.
Those were the days when a dozen beer cost around $2.
This week Karyn has been in Wellington as she a Director on the Arts' Council of New Zealand and today she has a meeting of the New Zealand Thoroughbred racing meeting, Council, wis the government representative of the Arts council, wearing her Members' Council hat. Tonight she and our daughter Julia-Rose are off to Auckland for the Sam Smith concert.
