Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

What an exciting weekend for Te Akau Racing!

We celebrated two winners on Saturday at Riccarton and two further winners on Monday at Te Rapa.

That brings our tally of wins in New Zealand to 27 already for the season - and just on $1.5 million in stake money for our owners this season (NZ$760,208 in New Zealand and A$746,400 in Australia).

Mark Walker is also on fire in Singapore - what a fantastic season he is having ... with 70 wins (and 18-win lead) for the season. Incredible when you also think he has had 66 second, 59 third and 59 fourth placegetters too. The Singapore season ends in December so Mark is well on his way to claiming his third Premiership title in Singapore in nine years.

NEW ZEALAND TRAINERS' PREMIERSHIP - as at 29.10.19

		Wins	2nds	3rds	Stakes	Starts	G & L	SR
1	Jamie Richards	27	19	18	$760,208	157	3	5.81
2	Stephen Marsh	22	15	17	$419,058	175	2	7.95
3	Kevin Myers	16	15	21	$310,781	156	0	9.75
4	Tony Pike	15	6	7	$362,137	59	3	3.93
5	Murray Baker & Andrew Forsman	11	10	9	$289,760	102	2	9.27
6	Nigel Tiley	11	5	7	$172,890	62	1	5.64
7	Kelvin Tyler & Aimee Tyler	10	11	10	$182,187	76	0	7.6
8	Allan Sharrock	10	3	5	$184,830	32	0	3.2
9	Lisa Latta	9	6	13	$218,835	114	1	12.67
10	Shaun & Emma Clotworthy	9	6	9	$163,138	73	0	8.11
11	Peter & Jessica Brosnan	8	2	3	$88,015	40	0	5
12	Team Rogerson	7	16	23	$247,598	183	1	26.14
13	Shaune Ritchie	7	7	11	$197,940	48	0	6.86
14	Michael Moroney & Pam Gerard	7	6	6	$161,990	71	1	10.14
15	Michael & Matthew Pitman	6	11	8	$166,435	92	0	15.33

SINGAPORE TRAINERS' PREMIERSHIP - as at 29.10.19

S/No	Trainer Name	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Unplaced	Total Runners	Strike Rate (%)
1	M WALKER	70	66	59	59	360	614	11.40
2	M CLEMENTS	52	39	37	28	219	375	13.87
3	S BAERTSCHIGER	47	27	35	24	255	388	12.11
4	C BROWN	44	39	28	28	199	338	13.02
5	D MEAGHER	43	45	35	44	169	336	12.80
6	DL FREEDMAN	35	53	47	45	197	377	9.28
7	S BURRIDGE	30	21	30	22	188	291	10.31
8	HW TAN	27	31	27	22	266	373	7.24
9	J SAIMEE	26	26	16	21	223	312	8.33
10	S GRAY	25	31	37	37	245	375	6.67
11	D LOGAN	25	26	25	19	151	246	10.16
12	H TAKAOKA	24	21	27	29	213	314	7.64
13	L DRAGON	23	13	23	17	107	183	12.57
14	J PETERS	22	28	33	23	167	273	8.06
15	J O'HARA	21	20	21	25	188	275	7.64

I get such an amazing thrill from every win that we achieve for our owners but seldom have I been so delighted to win a maiden race as I was when Exaltation (below) won at Riccarton on Saturday. She absolutely bolted in.

This filly is a half-sister to Melody Belle and the manner in which she won suggests there is plenty more in store for this beautiful filly. Well done to her owners - including my wife Karyn who purchased a share in this three filly syndicate - they have been so patient with this girl. They are a champion group of people. Since I purchased Exaltation, her half-sister Melody Belle has won eight Group 1 races - you can imagine what that has done to Exaltation's value!!

I also get a huge thrill when a horse that has been out of form wins - that is an amazing feeling of satisfaction for the hard-working team who put so much time and care and effort into our horses, but also for the owners who have been disappointed at a horse's recent performances. It's a feeling that is hard to describe.

In A Twinkling (above) is classic example of this - so when he won at Te Rapa yesterday - and carrying 61kgs to boot - I was just so stoked.

I must congratulate Bart Cowan and the track staff at the Waikato Racing Club - the Te Rapa track yesterday was just outstanding before the rain came. They have really improved the track - so well done to the team there.

Each year when the tracks firm and the plough opens at the training tracks - the Te Akau team starts to grow wings.

The other highlight of the weekend was obviously the great effort by Te Akau Shark to run third in the A$5 million Group 1 Ladbroke's Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in Melbourne. What a ride by our stable rider Opie Bosson - which Australian and New Zealand Hall of Fame jockey Brent Thompson called a "15 out of 10"!

It is very clear to me that Te Akau Shark can win a major race in Australia in the next 12 months, all going well with him.

Te Akau team member Craig Thornton has been looking after the Shark, and now also Melody Belle, and has been doing a terrific job for us in Melbourne.

We do have to manage Te Akau Shark carefully as he is not the soundest of horses - so he will arrive back in New Zealand on Thursday and come home to Te Akau Stud to spell after we have checked him over from top to toe just to ensure everything is well with him.

After his break we will get him ready for racing in February - a race like the Group 1 Waikato Sprint at Te Rapa would be a great race for him to start in before he goes back to Australia where his main goal will be the A$4 million Queen Elizabeth at Randwick in April 2020.

Karyn, our daughter Julia-Rose and her husband Hamish went over to support to team and enjoy the day - Karyn as a part-owner also enjoyed getting up close and personal with Winx's phenomenal four Cox Plates. You won't see them all together in one place again anytime soon.

Getting horses ready to race involved a finely tuned programme training-wise - we are very lucky at Te Akau Racing to have the best trackwork riders in the business. Two of those are Troy Harris and Michael McNab who are on fire on the racetrack at present and I am very proud of their achievements. They both won stakes' races across the weekend and these two guys will have a terrific season, of that I am confident. They deserve all the success that comes their way as they are working so hard and I am thrilled for them getting these results.

Of course the other main focus in my life right now is the upcoming Ready to Run Sale at Karaka on 21-22 November. We are well underway with refining our short-list so remember if you are keen on being involved, do let Karyn know - ([email protected]) - I have had great results from this sale, having purchased Group winners Gingernuts, Te Akau Shark and Hall of Fame as well as Singapore Polytrack Horse of the Year Flying Fulton - and many others such as recent winners Luminous, Shezathinka, Axel and Broadway Success.

Today I am going to Cambridge Stud to inspect some of our mares and foals and then heading on to Matamata to see all our horses in the stable.

In other news - one of our best horses Avantage has just been loaded on to the float to return to Matamata after having three weeks in the paddock spelling. We are looking forward to her being ready to race over Christmas/New Year at Ellerslie.

We have a busy week coming up at Te Akau Stud too as on Thursday we start shearing. We are fortunate that we have a six-stand wool shed so we get through about 1350 sheep per day. We have just over 6000 sheep to shear and we will also wean and drench the lambs so some fine weather would be a big help.

As soon as shearing is finished we will start selling cattle. It's the first time in my farming career that lamb, mutton and beef are selling at record levels. We have plenty of grass but not a huge surplus yet!!

Have a great week everyone and GO MELODY BELLE at Flemington on Saturday
That's her below photographed by Hamish
on Friday in Melbourne ...

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