Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

What another truly exciting weekend for Te Akau Racing! We had a total of seven wins over 24 hours, including a black type win for the Hawkins Family with Mai Tai.  The Listed Anzac Mile win by Mai Tai on Sunday at Awapuni means that our New Zealand stable has now won 40 black type races for the season and, of these horses, 36 have been bought by Jamie Richards and me.

On Saturday night, Karyn and I went to Paul Richards' 60th birthday celebrations at Headquarters, and what a fun night it was! I enjoyed meeting many of the Richards' friends and family who had travelled from the South Island for this special occasion.

What made the birthday celebrations even more fun was every time I checked my phone, I had a message from Singapore to say we had won yet another race! Mark Walker, our Te Akau Singapore trainer, had a total of five wins on Saturday night at Kranji. Gee, Mark is a great trainer, what a tremendous effort!

After chatting with several of Paul's family members at his birthday celebration, I soon realised just how incredibly lucky we are here at Te Akau Stud - I have never seen so much grass and the farm is very green! Unfortunately, a large area of the South Island is in drought conditions and Hawkes Bay on the east coast of the North Island is still extremely dry.

We have now finished our new colt paddocks, which have come away beautifully with these warm autumn days and rain that we have been having. The grass is lush and our colts are enjoying their new spelling paddocks.

As you will now know, I was delighted to see 'Weigh In' extend its season - it was a big effort, with great support, to even have the season of 'Weigh In' take place in the first place. I very much enjoyed watching the programme this week, and really believe that our industry has an incredibly exciting future ahead.  In my mind, there is no question that stake money will be increased next season. Paul Wilcox is doing a fantastic job as CEO at Ellerslie and I am looking forward to seeing what the next season brings.

It is incredible to think that it has been well over a year since I was last in Australia and I am really looking forward to travelling to the Gold Coast for the sales at the end of May. I have bought some serious horses at this sale, including two champion fillies who need little introduction - Group 1 winners Princess Coup and Costa Viva. I also purchased Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas' winner Tell a Tale and Integrate, who was one of my all-time favourites, at this sale.

If you would like to be involved or know more about the horses that we purchase from these sales, please do not hesitate to contact me or Karyn to discuss it further - those who hesitate tend to miss out!

We are well into the breaking in of our yearlings that we purchased from the Karaka and Magic Millions' sales in January and have also started on our two stunning fillies that we recently purchased from Sydney Easter.

It is very hard to believe that our Not Single Doubt filly still has shares available in her. I was watching Stephanie Hyde-Richards start this filly's early education, and I have to tell you, this filly is a real ripper - she has a great attitude and she is a real character. She's powerful and very muscular and looks like she will definitely make a two year old.  I'm looking forward to seeing her go into the stable when she is ready! There are only two shares left in this filly and I don't believe that they will be available for much longer.

Our daughter Lydia Roseby and her husband Jamie have been helping out here at the stud since returning from the UK to live permanently in New Zealand.  This was always their plan but it got disrupted by COVID and saw them have to spend four months on opposites sides of the world to each other!

I am sure we will make a farmer out of this ‘London lad' in no time as Jamie is enjoying the rural life and working hard on the farm.  For Lydia, having been ten years off the farm, she's straight back in to things and it's like she never left!  She has been riding Jerry, aka ‘Gingernuts' with our young horses out on the farm (main picture - with Troy Harris aboard our Almanzor/Champagne Katie colt).

‘Jerry' has become the most phenomenal lead pony for our youngsters. He gives them such confidence before they head into the stable for their first preparation.  Jockey Troy Harris has also been coming out to help out with our breakers in the mornings - he is such a gifted rider with our young horses and just has that innate sense of them - young horses respond very well to his horsemanship.  Troy has been helping Stephanie, who is doing a great job beautifully educating these youngsters before they begin their racehorse careers.

The main picture, as I mentioned, has Troy Harris aboard our Almanzor/Champagne Katie colt.  It was great to read that Almanzor had his first runner overnight at Chantilly in France - and he was a winner!  What a great start and terrific news for Brendan and Jo Lindsay of Cambridge Stud who stand Almanzor in the Southern Hemisphere season.

I love the progeny of Almanzor and we bought a good number at Karaka - we have a dozen in the stable and I think they have a bright future.   Obviously I am not alone in that thought as Almanzor's yearlings were hot property at the Australasian yearling sales this year with his top seller being a colt at the Magic Millions' sale that fetched A$800,000.

Have a great week everyone and I look forward to seeing you at Te Rapa this Saturday for another fantastic day of racing.