Te Akau Thursday Update
30 March, 2017
David writes:
Well the big news in the Waikato has to be all this rain, an unseasonable amount in fact however that means it has been easily the best season for growing grass.
In the 38 years that I have been farming on my own account, actually the last time we had a period that could compare to this was around Christmas/New Year in 1979. I remember I went to the Pirongia races where there was torrential rain and the races were called off.
On the farm that year we had six inches of rain between Christmas and the New Year. We went into January in fantastic shape however seasons have a habit of evening themselves out so we had a very dry February, March and April and went into winter quite short of grass.
This year we have had rain through December, January, February and a terrific amount in March. I have never seen this much grass in Autumn ever and the good news is the stock are doing so well. Last week on the farm we applied 500 tons of lime and 250 tons of super-phosphate and this rain is just marvellous for washing it all in.
Cattle are putting on 1.65 kgs a day at present - in the Spring they will put on up to 2.2 kgs but still 1.6 kgs a day is very good weight gain. The price of store cattle has risen sharply over the last couple of months and it's great to see people who are breeding this stock receiving good prices for a change.
Pretty much every newspaper I pick up has a story on Gingernuts racing this Saturday. We are confident he will go another honest race because he's very well in himself and he's thriving. Jamie Richards, who's done a great job with him, is very happy but you don't keep winning these big races in a row, so we've got our fingers crossed.
Equally our attention will be firmly focused on Awapuni on Saturday were we have four horses in the Group 1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes, a race that we have won many times before. It is always a great day's racing at Manawatu and normally I'm in attendance but with the sales on next week in Sydney, my focus is buying some really nice colts and fillies for the stable.
Sydney Easter Sale has a terrific catalogue and I've done an enormous amount a research on pedigrees and matings that I think are compatible. Jamie has been at the sale grounds each day this week inspecting the yearlings (when he is not with Gingernuts) and I will be there having a good look at all the horses from Sunday onwards.
If you would like to be involved in a yearling from Sydney please give me a call or email us - [email protected]
It's quite interesting that of the four horses we have in the Group 1 at Manawatu on Saturday, two came from the Magic Millions' sale, one from the Sydney Easter sale and Melody Belle came from the Karaka sale.
My belief is if you want a two year old then Australia is the place to go, if you want a nice staying three, four or five year old then Karaka definitely is the place to be.
As I have mentioned previously one of my favourite daily duties is going around each day checking on all the yearlings. I know I mentioned him yesterday but I saw him again today and I have to talk about him again. I just love our Declaration of War colt and have told Karyn to take a share in is Lot 88.
He is a belter of a fellow, a strong well balanced colt with plenty of speed in his exciting pedigree. I find it just staggering that shares are still available. If this colt isn't a top racehorse I will east my hat, to my eye he will develop into a Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas (a race we have won five times in the past 13 years) colt that would train to be a Grp 1 NZ Derby colt, just like Gingernuts. There are only two shares left so be quick!!
