Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

Well you would not believe it but reading the New Zealand Herald this morning something has happened that I have been waiting all my life to read. This morning Tuesday 23 September 2014  I received a Herald that has a Wednesday date on the front page and I thought gee this is terrific I will look up the race results and make a fortune.  Unfortunately now the Herald does not have race results in it so  no such luck!

I was in Hawkes Bay this weekend - it was just marvellous to see how well the Hawkes Bay is looking, extremely green and a little bit more grass than normal and the stock just looks outstanding. The racing was good although it was a very disappointing crowd and what a ridiculous situation we have with a Group One race day staged at the same time as a Ranfurly Shield game.  At least Hawkes Bay held on to the shield but isn't it ridiculous seeing them clash like that. They need to communicate better to maximise the opportunity fir the local community!

For those that went to the races it certainly was not disappointing  and some really great racing.  We had three runners for two seconds and a third but the highlight for Te Akau was winning the Listed Canterbury Belle Stakes at Riccarton with a filly bred here on the farm by Karyn and me.  She is by Darci Brahma out of Sweet Dreams Baby and is a cracker.  It must have been a big thrill for Sir Peter Vela to see the filly win because he bred both the father and the mother of Darci's Dream.

All credit must go to John Galvin who bought Darci's Dream at the Karaka Yearling Sales for the bargain basement price of $45,000.  He was then astute enough to realise early on what a good filly he had and went back this year and bought the full sister.  The full sister has had one trial at Te Teko and simply bolted in, in what I thought was the most impressive of all the 2YO trials that day. The last six runners the Fortuna Syndicates have had have all won plus Fortuna has had a couple of trial winners.  So congratulations to everybody involved in Fortuna for really an unbelievable achievement.

It is good to be back on the farm but gee we have had some rain.  I called into my Matamata stable yesterday on my way home and most of Matamata is under water and we have had just as much rain here on the farm although the weather has fined up a bit now and it is drying out pretty well.

The weekend also had other success with Scotland saying no in the referendum.  I thought it was a great result for common sense.  We also saw the New Zealand election - I was very impressed with John Key's victory speech when he said the one thing he would ensure was that there would be no arrogance in this third term in government and that he would go down the central track and not take the party any further to the right. Now I just hope that he can encourage the racing board to get its costs under control and start returning further money to the racing industry which can be used for stakes.