Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

I was just blown away with the strength of the Karaka sales this week. I have been to some pretty successful sales around the world but nothing compares with the weanling and broodmare sale this week.

For several years now I have been saying that there is a shortage of broodmares and I have been encouraging broodmare owners to breed their mares.  It looks to me like the demand for the New Zealand bred horse is now huge and I can see breeders that have stuck with the ship are going to be very well rewarded in years to come. The clearance rate at the weanling sale was what blew me away the most.  I think it will finish up being 92%.  I would say a 70% clearance rate at a weanling sale is pretty good so 92% is quite remarkable.

Well done to the New Zealand Bloodstock (NZB) team and their CEO Andrew Seabrook.  Your company is the bright light in our industry and a company the whole country can be very proud of.

Yesterday Xtravagant came home to Te Akau Stud for a spell.  Gee he is a magnificent horse. This morning our farrier Gareth Allis took the shoes off him and he just stood there like the gentleman he is.  Xtravagant has a rating of 103, 13 points ahead of the next best three year old in New Zealand.

Another movement this week was the unbeaten colt Heroic Valour.  He has been spelling at the farm for five weeks and is now back in work at Matamata. I was just thrilled at how this colt developed in his time out in the paddock.  Heroic Valour is also the highest rated two year old in New Zealand. 

So to have the highest rated two and the highest rated three year old in the country - and for them both to be colts is a huge result for the future of our industry. All going well this spring is certainly going to be a very exciting time for Te Akau Racing and our owners.  Another really good two year old that we have is Sassy'n'Smart and she has also done very well while spelling and I am predicting a huge spring for this talented filly. 

We have a lot of very good chances to win more races in the next three days. Jamie and Steve are now six wins ahead in the premiership so I am very proud of the team.

It has been the most amazing autumn.  No wind and extremely warm.  The weather for breaking the horses in has been great and it has also been terrific for all the horses that are spelling.  The grass here is the best I have ever seen. I am predicting some really good horses of the future will come from the yearlings I have bought this year - everybody gets excited watching them work each morning around the farm.

The Burgundy and Rock'n'Pop yearlings have all broken in really well.  Last Saturday morning we gave our first rising two year old a jump out - a Burgundy filly out of Mexican Rose and she just flew - a very fast impressive filly.  We have named her Nucelonic.

This weekend I have two special guests coming to stay, Sam Boyd and Dave McCarthy from Christchurch to keep me company at the farm while Karyn is in London.  Also this week Luke Copeland has been very busy drenching all the cattle and weighing them all and we set stock them all for winter onto saved pasture.

Tonight our daughter Julia-Rose is hosting a table for a fund-raising event for the Waikato Hospice to help this great cause (it will be interesting to see if she buy anything at auction - Ed in London)!  She and our new Racing Manager Brad Taylor will accompany her.

It is just amazing the season Jamie and Steve have had and I was thrilled to see them get yet another double at Otaki today which puts them in front of the premiership now by eight wins by my calculation. Rocksun won by 5.25 lengths and It's Our Showtime by 3.35 lengths.   It was almost a winning treble with Spritz going down by a short neck.

The first winner was It's Our Show Time is a filly that I bought privately from James Chapman for Fortuna Syndicators. The other winner as a Fastnet Rock gelding that I bought for our 2014 Te Akau Breeding Syndicate.  If that ownership sounds familiar, it is -  I bought this horse out of the Premier Karaka sale for a syndicate of four horses.  Brilliantly they have now all won - Xtravagant, Splurge, Rocksun  and Beacon of Hope.

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