Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

Yesterday we had our annual North Island Owners' Cocktail Party in Matamata and what a huge success it all was (following on from our South Island event on 6 November).  The stable was packed with owners who had come to see their horses and after a few speeches it was great to be able to show all our owners their horses and to enjoy some mixing and mingling with everybody who joined us.

We were thrilled to have such a big turn out and our special guest was Sir Peter Vela, the owner of Pencarrow Stud and New Zealand Bloodstock, who gave us an insight into the latest developments in the world of thoroughbred racing and an insight into the sales that are coming up at Karaka in January.  It was also terrific to have some of New Zealand's very best breeders in attendance with Sir Patrick Hogan and his Racing Manager Barry Lee, Nelson and Sue Schick and Garry Chittick.  Smaller breeders like Paul and Cushla Smithies were also in attendance.

After the speeches we then paraded two colts from the Ready to Run Sale.  The Savabeel/Royal Show colt who is fully sold and the Fastnet Rock/Apple Charlotte colt who has 10% available.  I was really impressed with the way the Fastnet Rock/Apple Charlotte colt  paraded yesterday.  He really is a super colt that I felt was bought well under the odds.  He has a beautiful European pedigree by a sire that stands for AUD$200,000.

Fastnet Rock is as good a sire as we have ever had in the Southern Hemisphere and his progeny are really going well.  This colt I can really recommend and a 10% share is only $20,000 plus GST or a 5% share is just $10,000 plus GST.  This really could be a 2000 Guineas Colt that would train on to win a Derby.  Just imagine the sort of value that he would then have on him?

I bought five horses at the Ready to Run sale, four colts and a filly and there is only the 10% share remaining in this Fastnet Rock colt. Some very good judges have taken  shares in him and I think everybody at the open day was most impressed with the way he paraded.

We also took the opportunity to parade our stunning two year old filly Windborne.  She is a Darci Brahma/Sweet Dreams Baby filly that has been at Te Akau Stud since birth.  This filly was incredibly impressive winning at Avondale and to win a stakes' race at just her second start was a tremendous effort by all the team and I was also really excited to see yet another really good horse that John Galvin has for his owners. Some of his owners took a fortune off the TAB in fixed odds in this filly's two starts.

Talking about the TAB I find it incredibly frustrating how Trackside is being promoted at the moment.  For a meeting like Te Rapa on Sunday to start on one channel and then cross to another shows me that the powers at be have no idea of the reality of life.  Most hotels only have one channel so it is impossible to watch a full card and on the Saturday why they have trots from Invercargill on the galloping channel is just so ridiculous. This is not a criticism of the harness code but on a Saturday most of us are only interested in watching quality galloping from New Zealand and from Australia.

One thing that absolutely staggered me was last Saturday when Karyn and I stayed at the Novotel on the Ellerslie Racecourse when we went to the Rolling Stones concert and the Novotel no longer has trackside on their television channel. Surely the TAB needs to promote the channels better to the hotels to ensure this does not happen. Of course I met the manager of the hotel and informed him that I would no longer be staying there while this policy was in place.

After the Owners' Day yesterday we took some of the team out for dinner in Matamata.  Karyn and I enjoyed having dinner with Robyn Bregmen, Jeff Dore, Jason Bridgman, Jamie Richards, Steve O'Neill, Pam Gerard, Tommy Hazlett, Matt Cameron, Blair Alexander, our daughter Julia-Rose and Amalie who is staying with us and working the horses at Te Akau Stud.  We finished up getting home to Te Akau at 12.30am this morning but it was all hands on deck at 5.00am this morning as we were drafting lambs for the first time this season.

So the whole team is flat out - Jason and the crew are at the Rotorua trials and Karyn is packing (soon) for London. Below is a picture of  Vive La Difference and a Zabeel gelding training at Te Akau Stud this morning.