Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

The team at Te Akau Racing is on fire!!

Yes, there have been wins most days and a strike rate to be proud of -  3.8.  That means that Te Akau has trained a winner for every 3.8 runners - you need to know what you are doing to get these sorts of figures.  When you also take into consideration the second and third place-getters from the stable, our horses are paying a dividend at a better rate then one in two starters.  From Te Akau's 57 runners to date, 30 of these have paid a dividend.  What unbelievable statistics from the team.

Tomorrow we have some interesting first starters at Te Aroha.  I love seeing two year olds race for the first time and Steve and Jamie have really educated our babies well.  We certainly have an exciting brigade of horses to race this season - they could even be the best yet!   Te Akau's policy is to let young horses tell us when they are ready to race. We never ever take a young horse to the races until it tells us it is ready.

We have a nice team heading to the Waipa trials on Thursday.  Then on Friday, we have a really exciting debutante at the Tauranga races -  a filly that Julia-Rose syndicated is having her first start. Gris Dame, a Reliable Man filly has shown a lot of promise and looks like she will grow into a pretty exciting staying type. Then on the weekend, it is full-on action with runners at Rotorua and Ashburton (Saturday), Hawkes Bay (Sunday) and of course Te Rapa on Labour Day Monday.

I have been watching gallops at Matamata for 40 years and I have never seen a horse work better than Gingernuts did during his exhibition gallop there on Saturday. We are all looking forward to seeing him step out at Hastings in the rescheduled Group 1 Livamol Classic and all going well, then he is on the plane to Melbourne for the Group 1 Emirates' Stakes.

Next week we have a big team to trial at Te Aroha on Thursday and we have some smart runners stepping out at Trentham and Riccarton next weekend.  Then before we know it, we are into NZ Cup Week at Riccarton, my favourite week of racing.  Presently we have four of the first six favourites in the $500,000 Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas.

I really enjoyed being at the Matamata races last weekend. Wow, was Te Akau Shark impressive or WHAT!!  I was so proud to have my great friend Steve Mace on hand who is the principal owner in the ‘shark' - he had come over from Sydney with his wife and two children just for the race.

Each Spring Karyn and I go away for four days to Queenstown and we are going tomorrow. We are then coming home through Hawkes Bay on Sunday and then we are off to Te Rapa for Labour Day Monday races.

Work is well underway repairing all the damage on the farm from the rain. All my team here are working very hard which is so appreciated by us.

My focus on the the upcoming Ready to Run Sale increases all the time.  I have now finished all of my pedigree research and now I will spend a lot of time looking at the breeze ups.

Normally we do not get a lot of interest before the sale from investors but we have had a lot of registrations of interest as well as orders this year, so it is all pretty exciting. The sale starts on 22 November so if you would like to join us at the sale you will be very welcome.

I bought Gingernuts and Hall of Fame from this sale two years ago and they have won four Group 1 races between them … last year it was Te Akau Shark and other successful purchases include Singapore Polytrack Horse of the Year Flying Fulton.

Have a great week and GO THE TANGERINE!!

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