Te Akau Thursday Update
1 April, 2021
David writes:
There is a currently a gigantic smile on the Te Akau farmer's face!
WOW - we have had over 60mls of rain this week and grass is just bolting! It is such an amazing sight, seeing the farm green up so quickly - it is incredible!
Yesterday, Alan Radford drafted 190 wether lambs that went to Wilson Hellaby meat processors today. I expect them to weigh about 18.5kg, which is great condition for this time of the year.
Our cattle are also on beautiful feed - it's such a thrill to see all our stock thriving. We only have 200 more steers left to sell and we are preparing to send them off in early June.
Alan Radford is the best judge of sheep and cattle I have met. He has completed all my buying and selling of stock since 1979.
The Te Akau Racing stable is still on fire! Yesterday we had a win with yet another 2YO first starter, this time with a Savabeel filly called Synchronize. Several races later, we made it a double as The Mighty Spar, a 3YO Savabeel gelding, broke through to win at just his third start.
Synchronize also won a NZB Pearl Series Bonus of $8000 on top of her first place stakes for her owners.
These two latest wins takes our trainer, Jamie Richards' tally to 135 wins for this season, and there is still four months to go! Such a great effort by everyone involved from our stable team to our stud team, and our vets, farriers and everyone who supports Te Akau. We are proud to deliver these results for our owners.
NEW ZEALAND TRAINERS' PREMIERSHIP as at 1 April 2021
| Wins | 2nds | 3rds | Stakes | Starts | G & L | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jamie Richards | 135 | 100 | 70 | $5,283,982 | 641 | 32 | 4.75 |
| 2 | Stephen Marsh | 61 | 55 | 65 | $1,641,338 | 650 | 7 | 10.66 |
| 3 | Michael & Matthew Pitman | 41 | 45 | 34 | $885,965 | 355 | 1 | 8.66 |
| 4 | Allan Sharrock | 40 | 21 | 16 | $848,669 | 158 | 6 | 3.95 |
| 5 | Murray Baker & Andrew Forsman | 39 | 40 | 32 | $1,813,374 | 329 | 5 | 8.44 |
| 6 | Tony Pike | 38 | 35 | 34 | $692,975 | 230 | 2 | 6.05 |
| 7 | Kelvin Tyler & Aimee Tyler | 30 | 29 | 18 | $604,543 | 211 | 0 | 7.03 |
| 8 | Lisa Latta | 24 | 29 | 32 | $648,985 | 321 | 0 | 13.38 |
| 9 | Kevin Myers | 23 | 31 | 25 | $494,066 | 238 | 0 | 10.35 |
| 10 | Fraser Auret | 23 | 19 | 14 | $265,468 | 183 | 0 | 7.96 |
| 11 | Johno Benner & Hollie Wynyard | 23 | 12 | 5 | $538,246 | 75 | 2 | 3.26 |
| 12 | Andrew Carston | 22 | 19 | 29 | $322,817 | 293 | 0 | 13.32 |
| 13 | Terri Rae | 22 | 15 | 5 | $398,001 | 98 | 2 | 4.45 |
| 14 | John & Karen Parsons | 21 | 26 | 25 | $458,974 | 259 | 0 | 12.33 |
| 15 | Lance O'Sullivan & Andrew Scott | 20 | 16 | 12 | $1,210,702 | 135 | 4 | 6.75 |
| 16 | Team Rogerson | 19 | 30 | 32 | $617,665 | 448 | 3 | 23.58 |
| 17 | Peter & Dawn Williams | 19 | 18 | 14 | $419,029 | 124 | 1 | 6.53 |
| 18 | Michael Moroney & Pam Gerard | 19 | 17 | 18 | $555,560 | 240 | 1 | 12.63 |
| 19 | Brian & Shane Anderton | 18 | 22 | 27 | $313,867 | 225 | 1 | 12.5 |
| 20 | Stephen Ralph | 18 | 11 | 16 | $410,879 | 194 | 0 | 10.78 |
I am very much looking forward to this Saturday, where we have runners at five different venues, both nationally and internationally - Tauranga, Ellerslie, Awapuni, Rosehill (Sydney) and Singapore.
I must also congratulate Brendan and Jo Lindsay and Henry Plumptre and the team at Cambridge Stud - to have their two stallions Almanzor and Hello Youmzain, already fully booked for this coming season is an incredible achievement. Well done to their marketing team! These are two stallions that are an investment in our breeding industry and are set in taking New Zealand to the next level over the next few years.
It also gives me massive pleasure to announce that the Team Member of the Quarter has been awarded to Luke Copeland, who is our farm manager here at Te Akau Stud.
He is an absolute champion, there is no other way to describe Luke! He has been here at Te Akau Stud for 18 years and makes my life easy and fun due to his attention to detail with everything that he does. Having someone like him managing the farm takes the pressure off me. Well done Luke.
Each winner receives a cash bonus from Karyn and me and, at the end of the year, the names of all our successful recipients of this award are placed in a hat and one lucky team member is drawn at random for an all expenses paid holiday for two in Queenstown.
Each Thursday morning, I am joined by several good friends to go for a walk around the farm. Last week, it was a beautiful Autumn morning and one of the guys snapped this photo - I thought it was too good not to share with you all.
On Saturday, Karyn and I are travelling to Awapuni for the Group 1 race day and we hope to see you there!
Best of luck to all our owners who have runners over the weekend and ...