Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

What a great day's racing it was at Matamata on Saturday.  Someone rang me the next day and said: "you must have gone home disappointed".  Well, I can promise you we did not - you can't be disappointed when you win three races at one meeting.

In the first race, horses Mark Walker trained ran 1-2-3-4 with El Roca filly Romancing The Moon looking very impressive winning by 3.5 lengths. Our stable then won Race 3 with a very promising horse called Wild Night (two below) and in the fourth race Challa (below) headed a home a Te Akau trifecta.

Sure we had some disappointing results, and we congratulate all winners on the day.  Particular kudos to the Club for all the effort it went to, to stage 12 races, a massive programme.

When Challa won Race 4, that was our stable's 41^st win for the season - an unbelievable achievement only two and a half months in to the season!  That puts Mark 22 wins ahead on the Trainers' Premiership, with more New Zealand stakes' race wins and more prize money earned for our owners than any other stable - $922,102.  All this with a strike rate of 5.66. We are very proud of our team, and also delighted for our owners.

The 2022/23 season was always going to be a rebuilding period for Te Akau - in the last 18 months we have sold horses for over $20 million out of the stable.  With the retirement of horses such as dual Horses of the Year Probabeel and Melody Belle, along with Group 1 winners Avantage, Sword of State, Noverre, Amarelinha, Entriviere and others, it always takes a while to rebuild.  We are however very fortunate that so many of our younger horses are showing lots of potential so the future is indeed very exciting.

But the weekend winning did not stop there ...

As usual, Te Akau Singapore had another winning weekend!  Gee our trainer Donna Logan has had a great season - she literally wins a race (or two or three) every weekend.  There are only seven meetings until the end of the Singapore racing season and Donna is in a tight race for Trainers' Premiership honours.  She currently leads the table with 53 wins - a lead of one, so we will all be cheering home our runners in the next two months.

We are of course right in the middle of the foaling season and we have so far welcomed seven new folks into the world, with another 1o to come.  I know I have said it before but one stallion I have a really good feel for is Embellish. I am even getting reports from Australian trainers on how impressed they are with his progeny. We are sending five of our mares to him this season.

This weekend Karyn & I are going to Hawkes Bay for the Livamol.  What an exciting day's racing its going to be - it's always a fun weekend.  We will only have three starters at Hastings, including second favourite for the Livamol in Prise De Fer.  He's always been a horse that tries his heart out and has been Group 1 placed five times!  He has also won a Group 2 Rich Hill Mile and two Group 3 races and you wouldn't find a more honest horse, it would be great to see him snare a big one.

We will be keeping a close eye on the Ashburton races too - amongst our runners there were have the well-bred fillies One Kiss and I Choose You contesting the Group 3 Barneswood Farm Stakes - a race Te Akau has had a lot of success in over recent years.

Before that however, it is midweek racing at Avondale after seeing some very good performances at the Waipa trials today.

Today at the farm we docked our final paddock of lambs. These were the ewes that were scanned as late lamb'ers. The grass is really growing at Te Akau Stud and the stock are really thriving.

Have a great week and best of luck to all our owners with runners.