Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

THERE IS STILL NO RAIN, and yet we are in the first week of May!!

Gee, it is a frustrating year to be a farmer!

All of my horse country looks amazing, with quality grass for the horses but the hills need the rain SO BADLY!

While it is frustrating for the farm, it is brilliant for the horses, and great weather for the team who is breaking our horses in.

We have 22 breakers that we are working with now, and only have about another 10 to go, so in six weeks we will all be finished.

Every day, watching them work, makes me happy. We have purchased a beautiful group of yearlings, our best yet and by a margin, so well done to everyone who has invested in them. 

We only have a few shares now available in three yearlings, and one that I really, REALLY like (and can't believe that there are still shares available) is the Savabeel filly out of High Fashion. 

God I love this filly - watching her work around the farm is a joy to watch. She is just what I look for in a filly - a beautiful pedigree, out of a Group winning O'Reilly mare. High Fashion won the Group 3 Lowland Stakes and the Group 3 Desert Gold Stakes and is out of a stakes' placed Pins mare, who is out of a Sound Reason mare, who is out of a Hermes mare. 

As Joe Walls would say to me: “there is no weakness in this pedigree, David.”

Savabeel, Pins, Sound Reason, Hermes - it is the magic cross.

This filly is absolute quality, and she could well turn out the same as Avantage - she was the last filly to sell in her year, and Avantage's results prove the saying ‘saving the best for last.'   

I paid $320,000 for this filly, and a 10% share is $32,000 plus GST, while a 5% share is $16,000 plus GST. 

It's Mother's Day on Sunday and what a lovely present a share in this stunning filly would be, especially for your wife! Just imagine how much you'll be in the ‘good books' when this filly wins the Karaka Million!

This filly can be viewed on our website, Lot 78. Go and have a look at her, you will be seriously impressed!

Tomorrow at Matamata, we have our last big day for the season with seven runners. Best of luck to everyone involved and GO THE TANGERINE!

We haven't got many to race now with winter imminent, so my attention is drawn to next season. We have turned a lot of horses out for a spell early this year, and it has really paid dividends - it is quite incredible how well the horses have done in the last 10 weeks.

We are now starting to bring in our Spring horses, and on Monday, the legends themselves, Sword of Osman, Te Akau Shark and Melody Belle, were the first to be brought back into work. 

This Spring, we will have horses in the South Island, Melbourne and Sydney, as well as a really nice team for the Hawkes Bay Carnival. This means that many of our staff members are currently away enjoying a much-needed holiday and they will be fresh and ready to go for the new season - just like the horses they care for.

I have had an unbelievable amount of feedback from so many people about my comments on NZTR.

One thing that I have found hard to believe is you just never see many board members or senior management at the races. Several clubs have told me they can't remember having a board member on course, and I am often asked who members of the board are.

This is my response to those comments - to the NZTR Board members, you are paid to do this job. Go and meet the clubs, meet their communities, talk to the CEO of the clubs, and find out first-hand what is happening as these people run racing for the LOVE of it, and work their bums off finding sponsors and putting the show on.

Go and introduce yourselves to the clubs - THIS WHAT YOU ARE PAID FOR! 

By doing this, the NZTR Board will become much more effective racing administrators. 

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