Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

After a stellar 2023/24 season, the new season is now just over two weeks old!  We started with a hiss and a roar with a winning treble at Riccarton on the synthetic track but August is always overall a frustrating month to train and prepare horses for trialling and racing. 

Traditionally, Te Akau has very few runners during this time of the year as the vast majority of our horses prefer better going on the grass tracks. The tracks are still pretty heavy, and the weather is cold, the most of our horses still have not lost their winter coats as yet.

However - tomorrow is the start of what I call the start of the exciting time of the year.

At Taupo, in search of better footing, we have horses like Group winners and performers Move to Strike, Wolverine, Campionessa, Dream of the Moon, Talisker, Captured by Love, Certainly, Mehzebeen, Cognito and Unbridled Joy all trialling before the race day proper gets underway.

Congratulations to the Taupo Racing Club for putting on these three trials before the first race. It is a club that works really hard and season in, season out, does a fantastic job, most of it voluntary too.

Then we have a number of exciting young horses to race that just need a good track to bring them forward towards goals such as the 2000 Guineas, 1000 Guineas etc. In the past this has been a pivotal meeting for our horses' programmes.

Having a stable at Riccarton has been absolutely brilliant as, in general terms, the tracks firm up in south a lot quicker than they do in the Auckland/Waikato region.  Our southern stable under the leadership of Hunter Durrant really showed the key part is plays in. our whole operation with 64 wins recorded from that base last season.

Over the years I have noticed that it is often not until the first week of October that the tracks really improve in the North Island - with the exception of perhaps Hawkes Bay that doesn't seem to receive the rainfall that the remainder of the North Island generally does.

As we enter this new season, I am also pleased to share that our stable rider Opie Bosson ONZM is in great form - he is getting his weight down really well and spending a lot of time in my gym here at Te Akau Stud. I don’t think it will be long now before he is riding 56kgs. Still a little bit of work to do but he is in great shape to do it.

Over the weekend, I was away for a few days and came home to the farm yesterday and couldn’t believe how the grass is growing. I thought you would be interested in having a look at the first set of quadruplets that have been born on the farm this year (main picture). This ewe had four lambs, and as that's a big ask for any mother, we have given two of them to two local children to rear them for Pet Day at our local school.

Lambing is going really well with record numbers of twins, and I can see that in three or four weeks’ time we are going to have more grass than we can handle.

Alan Radford, who does all the buying and selling of my sheep and cattle for Te Akau Stud, has been busy buying yearling steers for me. The price this year is the highest it has ever been and we have been paying up to $1,250 - $1,300 each for yearling steers.

But the good thing is that the export price is also at a record level, so our margins are going to be at a good level.

Karyn has recently been to Melbourne for the Victorian Horse of the Year awards and Imperatriz was runner-up Horse of the Year with 60 votes. The Horse of the Year was the Caulfield/Melbourne Cup winner Without A Fight (66 votes) - a milestone that hadn’t been achieved for 22 years.  Pride off Jenni was third with 41 votes. 

It was also pleasing to see former New Zealand Champion Jumps' Jockey Aaron Kuru recognised as the Champion Victorian Jumps' Jockey of the Year. He has forged a formidable relationship with our Australian stable, riding three of our jumpers to six wins!  This country can be very proud of what Aaron has accomplished in Australian jumping ranks, all through hard work, determination and of course, natural talent!

Coming up we have the South Island 2023/23 season awards in Christchurch in mid September. Te Akau is well represented with Discretion Rules and Nucleozor being finalists for the 2YO of the Year title. Star of Justice, Talisker and Viva Vienna are finalists for the 3YO of the Year award. Perfect Scenario is a finalist for the Miler of the Year, while Sorcha and Treaty of Paris are finalists for the Polytrack Performance of the Year.

Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson must be warm favourites to be the Trainer of the Year title given they have trained 64 winners in the South Island, compared with the next best trainer who trained 54 winners.

We are all also looking forward to the New Zealand Horse of the Year Awards which this year is being held on Sunday 8 September in Hamilton at Mystery Creek.

The Champion 2YO category will be fascinating with Te Akau having three of the four finalists - Group 1 winner Move To Strike, multiple Group winner and twice Group 1 placegetter Captured By Love, and Group 2 winner Bellatrix Star.  

Imperatriz must be a good chance in the Champion Sprinter/Miler category, which she also won last season - while Campionessa takes on a competitive Middle/Distance Horse of the Year line-up.

Our training team will be recognised for its Premiership win, and is also one of two finalists for the Champion Trainer of the Year award. Likewise another familiar face as a finalist and former winner, our stable rider Opie Bosson ONZM has been named as a finalist for Champion Jockey of the Year honours.

Best of luck to all our owners with runners tomorrow at Taupo and at Te Rapa on Saturday where we see feature being the Group 2 Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate – Te Akau has won this race three of the last six years with Imperatriz, Avantage and Melody Belle. This year we have nominated Group 1 winners Skew Wiff and Romancing The Moon.

Foxbridge day is always a sign that racing in New Zealand is starting to heat up and we can't wait to be trackside!