Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

What an inceredibly exciting weekend it was at Te Akau Stud.

To win a major race at The Curragh has always been my dream - The Curragh is such an unbelievable racecourse!  It is set on 10,000 acres of flat, rolling land and the course is so large that I guess the best way to describe it is this:  if you stood in the Members' stand at Te Rapa and looked straight ahead - you look at about the 1200m shute.  If that was The Curragh it would be the two mile (3200m) start.  That's how big a course it is.

Torcedor drew 21 out of 22 and this race which was worth 150,000 euros (90,000 euros to the winner) provided a really exciting finish.  Torcedor's trainer David Wachman rang me last night and said that the horse had come through the race in great shape.  We will give him a few days to recover before we decide if he will have one more run this preparation.  David Wachman thinks he has a fine season ahead of him next season (northern time). It was a brave effort and it was just a thrill to see the tangerine colours win on another major raceday in Europe.

Right now Jamie Richards is crossing the Cook Strait with our Fatsnet Rock colt Bishop Rock.  We are taking him to the South Island to join our team already settled in at Riccarton with Pam Gerard and Gary Ritchie.  We have fantastic facilities there, keeping our horses at Shane Kennedy's yard.

This weekend we will have Bishop Rock, Princess Davone, Special Memories, Windborne and Vive La Difference racing in Christchurch.  Of course we will be also very focused on racing at Hawke's Bay this weekend where Love Triangle contests the Group 3 Gold Trail Stakes.  We are really hoping that the track gets back to a four or a five for this weekend in the Bay but my farming friends tell me there was another heavy frost this morning which won't allow much drying weather.

We also have some really nice horses to race at Taupo on Friday and a big team to trial at Te Teko next week so we are not far away from being 'all steam ahead'.

We had a fun weekend on the farm with my daugther Sarah and her partner Nick announcing their engagement - we also had a party on Sunday lunch to celebrate Matt Cameron's back to back Jockeys' Premiership and Champion Jockey of the Year titles.  It was a wonderful day with lots of laughs - many of those thanks to our daughter Julia-Rose who had put a lot of time into personal theming for everyone present.

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days you could imagine on the farm and I went around and had a look at all of my stock and my cattle are now all on at least 3-4 inches of grass.  The grass is bolting and I am buying more store cattle, both bulls and steers, this week.  Today we are busy docking - taking advantage of the fine weather.  We have also had Sam Boyd staying here which is always a lot of fun.

Over the weekend we had  another special foal born - our Volksraad mare Corsage safely delivering an O'Reilly filly (below).  We now have had two of our Volksraad mares foal to him with Mexican Rose producing a colt.  Both mares will be served by Savabeel this season which is the same cross as Group 1 winner Kawi.

Have a great week.