Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

These are certainly very challenging times we live in currently.

We are now in our first day of lock-down as a country and Karyn and I are following the rules conscientiously - and we are also really focussed on our humans and our horses.

You see when you have a magic season as we have had, everyone can celebrate and talk about the good days BUT we want to lead our team through the difficult days too. We always applaud them during the good days, and we will always help them and support them during the tough ones. We will always remind our people that they are special to us, and that we care about them - and for them.

As our Matamata stable has emptied, and the training track has closed, we are now super busy at Te Akau Stud and what a magnificent job the whole stud team here has done under these new regulations and requirements - Enzo, Steph, Deane, Mette, Ailish, Reece, Sam and everyone - you are just supermen and superwomen!! We are so proud and grateful for the way you have really got stuck in and made this major transfer of our horses work in such a seamless and professional way. Your commitment certainly doesn't go unnoticed.

Our office team is working from home, while Karyn holds the physical office fort. So these days are changing days, the way we live and work - but so far, so good - thank you team, I am so proud of each and every one of you!

In the last few days, we have had 35mls of rain at Te Akau Stud - and another 9mls this morning - which has been a massive help and the farm is certainly starting to green up nicely and the grass is growing. Certainly more rain is needed but it's an encouraging start for sure.

Karyn and I are going to go around the farm each day taking photos and videos of horses for our owners so even though they cannot physically see them, they can stay in touch!

While the "rooms at the farm inn" are pretty full, we are lucky that we have a large property where there is so much space for all our horses to thrive during this break. We really enjoy watching them develop and also watching them play and relax. They are lucky - they haven't got a care in the world as long as their twice daily feed run is on time!!

Our new yearlings are looking in superb order so well done to all our owners who invested in them - we still have a small handful of shares remaining in some exciting youngsters and remember - last to sell is often the best - there is no rhyme or reason to it! I can't wait for racing to resume because our team is going to be very hard to beat.

We will stay in very good touch
and in the meantime,
stay safe and stay strong -
we stand united -
we will all get through this together

Back