Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

I love being the bearer of glad tidings and there is so much good news to share with you, with the first three weeks of the new racing season complete.

Saturday delivered one of the most exciting moments I have had in racing when on Saturday our Te Akau New Zealand trainer Jamie Richards recorded his first win in his own right - and what a way to do it - with a Group 2 victory.  AND it was his birthday too!

We were all thrilled to see Melody Belle, driven home powerfully by Shafiq Rusof, claim the first Group 2 of the new season, the $100,000 Lisa Chittick Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa.  Melody Belle, now a 4YO mare, was purchased by me for Fortuna Syndicators from the Karaka Premier Sale for just for $57,500 and she has now won a tick under $1 million in stakes in her 13 starts.  She was of course our Karaka Million winner last year, the same race we won this year with Avantage.  She also won the Group 1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes (just as Avantage did this year too) before heading to Brisbane to claim the Group 2 BTC Sires' Produce Stakes and was subsequently named the Champion 2YO for 2016/17.

A Commands' filly, she resumed as a 3YO with a stirring win at the scene of her Karaka Million victory, when taking out the Group 3 Mongolian Khan Trophy on Karaka Million night this year.  She didn't have the best of luck for the remainder of the season but boy she looks to be back with a vengeance.

What a great way for the team to kick off the new season!  Well done too Jamie, a fantastic way to start your individual training career.

The night before the Foxbridge Plate we were also at Te Rapa for the Waikato Racing Club's annual cocktail party which is held every year on the eve of the race meeting.  A relatively recent innovation, the Club has attracted some really good speakers such as Lee Freedman, John Wheeler, George Simon, Greg Miles and this year was no exception with former jockey John Letts filling the bill.  He had some great stories to tell, especially from his riding days when he won two Melbourne Cups and also from his days as a post-race TV interviewer aboard the well-known horse "Banjo".

A busy weekend was then capped off with a 50th birthday celebration a close friend on Sunday.

It had been quite a week too with Jamie and the team trialling 56 horses at the re-scheduled Te Teko trials last Monday.  I was delighted with how well the team had the horses all looking and we had some very good trial performances.  It's hard to get a line on some of the team when they have to trial under heavy track conditions but in those cases, we needed to get the preparations underway and the balls rolling so they are ready to step out once we see an improvement in the tracks.  Today we had another sizeable team trial at Te Rapa, including Avantage (below with Teina Walters) so it is exciting to see the season really starting to get underway.

Speaking of Teina takes me to our next highlight of the week - last night Karyn and I were in Matamata.  Karyn firstly went to Hamilton as a Guest Speaker for the Country Women's Institute which she really enjoyed; I went over earlier to catch up with all of our team and inspect the horses.  Then last night we attended the annual Matamata Racing Club Awards.  The Club stages these awards for the people and horses that are based at its training centre - Matamata is one of the most important and strategic training centres in the country.

It was a very successful night for Te Akau Racing - Avantage was named Champion 2YO as well as Horse of the Year, Embellish won the Champion 3YO title; Jamie and Steve were the Trainers of the Year and Teina was crowned Strapper of the Year!  Karyn and I were so proud of the whole team who were also in attendance - well done as these awards reflect only a small slice of the very hard work, dedication and passion of all of our staff.  It gave me great pride to be able to congratulate our team publicly at the enjoyable event put on by the Matamata Racing Club - Dennis Ryan and his committee, well done!

Last week Karyn was also in Timaru for most of the week, only back in time for the WRC cocktail party on Friday.  She went down with our daughter Julia-Rose and her wee girl Lucia-Rose as it was Karyn's mother's birthday.  Karyn's mother is now in dementia care full-time but had not met her first great grandchild so the girls took the baby down for the week and snapped some very special four-generation photos which are a real treasure.  It's such a sad illness as her mum doesn't know Karyn anymore.  It seems that quite a number of people we know have the daily challenge of living with, and caring for, relatives or friends that have some form of dementia such as alzheimers.

Every year August and September are always frustrating months as we wait for the tracks to improve and we are dogged with wet, winter tracks.  The good news is that we are well past the shortest day so the better weather months are not far off.  The days are getting longer and the grass is starting to grow again on the farm.  We have now finished our lambing and our docking will start on Thursday.

We are looking forward to welcoming our Singapore trainer Mark Walker home on Saturday and he and I are attending the All Blacks game on Saturday night against the Wallabies, then we will be going to the NZTR Horse of the Year Awards on Sunday evening with a big team of about 60 including owners and our senior staff.

Te Akau has five Group 1 winning horses that are finalists in various categories, joined by our training team which is also one of two Trainer of the Year title nominees. I am proud that I selected and purchased all of the following:

Avantage and Sword of Osman - Champion 2YO finalists

Embellish and Age of Fire - Champion 3YO finalists

Gingernuts - Champion Sprinter/Miler (up to 1600m) finalist

Good luck to their owners and to our team who will be out in force to support them!

GO THE TANGERINE and GO THE ALL BLACKS!