Te Akau Thursday Update

David writes:

What an exciting time to be involved in New Zealand racing!

What a start to 2025 for the Te Akau and our owners - January was a wonderful month, winning both Karaka Million races in January - the $1 million Karaka Millions 2YO and also the $1.5 million Karaka Millions 3YO.  La Dorada and Damask Rose certainly made us very proud indeed.

Three weeks later, the dream results continued as we raced ‘at home’ in New Zealand at Matamata.  

La Dorada became our 10th Group 2 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes winner; Return To Conquer became the stable’s 11th Group 3 Matamata Slipper winner, as he led home a stable and a Snitzel trifecta in the event, and finally What You Wish for was superb in the Listed Kaimai Stakes.  In total the team won four races on the day, with Balance of Power joining his stakes’ winning stablemates in the winner’s circle.

As well as the winning quartet at Matamata, our owners have celebrated a Te Akau trifecta of wins at Riccarton on 19 February and again yesterday at Taupo.  The win of Court of Appeal, our third on the day at Taupo on Wednesday, bright up our 90th New Zealand win for the season - a lead of 30 on the New Zealand Trainers’ Premiership.

Te Akau has also recorded more Group/Listed wins and more stake money earnings for our owners than any other stable - we are proud of this becuase all our team wants to do is win races for our owners, it’s what we live and breathe for.

So yes, it has been a great start to 2025 and we have plenty more to look forward to. In just over a week, we will see the biggest race day ever in the history of New Zealand racing, with Champion’s Day at Ellerslie on 8 March.

The headline act will be the inaugural southern hemisphere’s richest race, the $3.5 million Listed NZB Kiwi - to be raced alongside the $1.25 million Trackside NZ Derby; $1 million Group 1 Bonecrusher Stakes; $600,000 Group 1 NZ Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes; $600,000 Group 2 Auckland Cup; $550,000 Group 1 Sistema Stakes; $250,000 Group 3 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Sunline Vase and $250,000 Group 3 Haunui Farm King’s Plate.

What a day this will be - if you had told anyone a few years ago that we would be racing for these types of stakes on one day, no-one would have believed it possible.

As I said on the Guerin Report on Monday evening, I think that stake money is important, however I am firmly of the belief and have been for some time, that we must concentrate on getting the our tracks and facilities right and having so many race meeting and trials’ abandonments is simply not acceptable. It makes developing a horse’s individual programme very challenging.

While I also enjoy watching most harness racing, I don’t think we should be having harness racing on the grass galloping tracks at the moment. Someone said to me recently that some galloping clubs are earning $15,000 – $17,000 a meeting having harness racing on their tracks. I am not sure of this is correct but if so, it doesn’t help the tracks and with so many courses out of action, it’s essential that the thoroughbred industry has the very best facilities to trial and to race on that we can get.  

However there are also positives - congratulations to the Waipukurau Jockey Club for having its track ready to trial on, we now really need that track to be raced on too.

Our shares in our yearlings are selling at record speed, it’s quite incredible the number of shares that are selling every single day, and to both our loyal ownership family and new investors too. 

Our Racing Manager Reece Trumper is doing a great job helping Karyn and I sell shares, our owners enjoy dealing with Reece on racedays and he is a valuable member of our team.

Te Akau Stud is very dry at the moment and it’s fair to say that we are in the middle of an old fashioned drought. Nonetheless the cattle are still weighing very well and the price has risen for the last four weeks and we are currently getting a record price for our beef. We sent the last two units of steers away this week and we won’t be sending any more until May - June. We will have another six units to go then and after that, none until September – October. 

There is no rain forecast in the next few weeks but if we don’t get any by the end of March, we will have to start feeding our winter haylage early. 

Last Saturday Hugh Jackson, son of Jenny Jackson, our Business Manager, had a function at Te Akau for Young Farmers and they all met at the local sports’ complex before they embarked on a local adventure!

You can see from the main photo that the Young Farmers enjoyed a tour across Te Akau Stud, some 40 vehicles driving around the farm having a look, before they went out to the Jackson farm on the coast to inspect their farm. 

Hugh finished third in the Young Farmer of the Year National Final two years ago and I am predicting that he will be very tough to beat this year - he is an exceptionally talented young man and a great asset to the Te Akau district. 

Remember to check our website to see what shares we have available - quite a few of our yearlings have had significant pedigree updates since we purchased them - for example Lot 43 our Almanzor/Kay’s Legacy filly who was super buying at $135,000.  Kay’s Legacy is a half sister to the very well performed Rise At Dawn who won his eighth race, a stakes’ race, at Flemington two weeks ago.  It’s a family we know well, and this filly has huge upside.

Don’t forget that the last to sell in their years were Imperatriz and Avantage, so there are really lovely yearlings that still have some shares available so if you want to be involved please feel free to give me a call on 021 925151 - or email Karyn - [email protected] - you will be made to feel very welcome. 

Best of luck to all of our owners with horses running this weekend.