Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

What an exciting few days it has been - firstly on Friday night with Riedel who we bred here at Te Akau Stud winning so bravely in Singapore.  Then on Sunday we had our family dinner for my birthday at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Auckland.

That was such a fun night - we had our five children and their partners with us as well as Matt Cameron and his partner Blair.

One of biggest surprises I have ever had was to see our London based daughter Lydia walk into the restaurant.  I had absolutely no idea that she was coming all the way home for my birthday from London.  It was such a thrill to see her and the most amazing surprise I could have had.  I gather it took quite a lot of planning to keep this information under wraps and me in the dark (yes it did - Ed)!

So this week Lydia is on the farm and tonight we are having the staff Lydia used to work with here on the farm for a special dinner to celebrate her being back at Te Akau Stud. Unfortunately Lydia has a job interview for an internal promotion in London so only has another five days here with us!  Sadly too her partner Mitch has had to stay in London this time with his work as an architect.

One of the most rewarding things was to look around that room for Karyn and me and to see Joanna happy in her teaching role, Sarah enjoying her new beauty therapy business that she has just opened, Davey working as a farrier, Lydia employed in communications and PR in London and Julia working in marketing at the Auckland Racing Club.  It is wonderful seeing all five kids happy and employed in careers they enjoy - we think being able to leave good young citizens is one of the best works of life.

It was also exciting because every time I looked at my mobile phone (oh yes and he does that often as we know - Ed) I had a text from Singapore saying we had had another win - Mark trained three winners on Sunday night - an incredible effort.  Our Singapore operation is going unbelievably well.  For Mark and Julia to have this sort of success after only being in Singapore for three years is a such an achievement.  Mark is also helped by Gus and Karen Clutterbuck in Singapore.  They have been in the Te Akau team for many years and are greatly valued team members.

So FOUR wins for Te Akau Singapore over the weekend was another reason to celebrate!

It didn't take the New Zealand operation long to continue with its flying success this season either!  Yesterday Jason trained No Emotion to win at Te Aroha, putting him two wins in front on the Trainers' Premiership.

Show No Emotion has an interesting background. She was bred by our longtime friends and owners Gavin and Shane Wealleans and raised from her early days as a foal at Te Akau Stud.  After discussions with Gavin and Shane, she was entered into last year's May Broodmare Sale by me but I kept looking at this mare (who is absolutely huge) and pondering her future.  Just to give you an idea how large she is - her racing weight yesterday was 611 kgs - the heaviest weight a Te Akau horse has ever been.

Anyway one day before the sale I rang Jason and said "I think we might just be smart to give this mare more time and between us we talked it over and I rang Gavin and Shane and said that I wanted to withdraw her from the sale.  I told them that I thought that she was so enormous that I wanted to giver her another opportunity as her big frame settled with age.

So it was a great thrill for us to see her win at her first start back - and win so well.  She did her very best to get beaten yesterday - firstly Matt Cameron had a heck of a job getting her in to the starting stalls and then she wanted to race in a very green manner all way down straight.  However with such a strong and experienced jockey as Matt aboard, it didn't take long for him to straighten her up and get her over line in first position.  It was really a big thrill for me and I know quite special for Gavin and Shane as Show No Emotion's dam Lynisky was lost after foaling a Mastercraftsman filly a couple of weeks ago.

Today I am looking at yearlings at Cambridge Stud as our inspections for Karaka swing into earnest.  I don't think I have ever seen our farm in such amazing order - this morning we sent another unit (truck and trailer load) of steers to the works and they have done amazingly well in this very good spring.  There has been beautiful rain in the last couple of weeks and that has given us plenty of good quality grass.