Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

I think I have said it before, but this is my favourite time of the year!

It's hard to believe that we are only a month away from the start of the Karaka Sales.

Today I am looking at yearlings at Westbury Stud and then I will be heading to Haunui Farm.  Then on Wednesday the team and I will be inspecting drafts in the northern Waikato.

After buying six straight Karaka 2YO Million winners in a row, I have a bit of a spring in my step but as we know, this is not easy to achieve so I have been very busy studying the Karaka catalogue in depth!  The challenge is on this year to find the horses that will be precocious and qualify for the Karaka 2YO Million and give their owners the thrill of a lifetime - we will be do our very best to try and ensure one of them becomes our 7th winner.

The average purchase price across our six Karaka 2YO Million winners was $205,000 - from $57,500 to $380,000.  Two of the six winners, Melody Belle and Avantage, were fillies who went on to win 23 Group 1 races between them and then be sold as broodmares for $6.8 million. Probabeel, who won both the Karaka 2YO and 3YO Million, will never be sold by her owners but I would value her at around $5 million.

Our next winner Cool Aza Beel was sold to stand at stud in Australia and has just finished his second season at stud having served full books both years. Last year's winner On The Bubbles is a gelding who is still racing successfully.  We are proud that all of these horses trained on to become Group 1 winners . This year's winner Dynastic - I have the feeling he could be a very good horse indeed, a Group 1 winner waiting in the wings - and hopefully he too has a stallion career ahead of him.

The yearlings that I bought in Australia at the Gold Coast Sale are all home on the farm and I could not be happier with them.  We only have one share now available in our Heroic Valour colt and shortly we will begin to educate these youngsters.

It was great having our returning trainer Mark Walker on the ground at the Magic Millions' sale as he was able to personally inspect our short list - seeing these yearlings arrive home was a great thrill as they are, without exception, quality through and through.

The winners kept coming over the weekend in New Zealand and also for our Singapore stable, now headed by Donna Logan.

It was great to see I Wish I Win romp home at Trentham on Saturday with Entertainer saluting the judge in Singapore. Then we were delighted to cheer Brando and Campionessa home to win at Ellerslie on Sunday.

Congratulations to our owners and also well done to our hard working team - very proud of you!

It's very dry in the Waikato currently and I have a feeling that good, decent rain could be at least a month or more away.  The freezing works are really struggling to kill stock - they are only at about 60% capacity because they can't get staff - this is a major problem, however we are lucky we are getting the number away that we need to.

Have a great week everyone and ... GO THE TANGERINE!