Te Akau Wednesday Update
10 October, 2018
David writes:
Karyn and I had a wonderful weekend in the beautiful Hawke's Bay. We caught up with some friends and had such a good time!
On Friday I had lunch with 15 mostly local friends in Hastings where we watched Icebomb win very impressively. This was the start of a very good winning weekend with SEVEN winners in five days ...
4 October Queen of the Air in New Zealand
5 October Icebomb in New Zealand
5 October Sacred Sea in Singapore
6 October Te Akau Shark in New Zealand
7 October Man of Mystery in Singapore
9 October Puysegur in New Zealand
9 October Our Flying Ace in New Zealand
After the lunch on Friday, it was out to Black Barn where four couples hired a lovely house. On Friday night we had drinks with our friends from Sydney who had come over to see Te Akau Shark race and what a weekend we all had.
It was just so exciting to see Te Akau Shark become our fifth black type winner when he won the Group 3 Red Badge Sprint in such commanding style.
The good news is that Te Akau Shark has come through the race in great shape and today we are talking to the Victorian Racing Club about the likely weight 'the Shark' would receive in the major 1600m race on Derby Day before we make a decision on his programme.
Hasn't our New Zealand trainer Jamie Richards done an amazing job training this horse? Jamie and our team had "the Shark" ready to win first up, having not raced for nine months and then five weeks later, had him ready again for his very impressive Group 3 win on Saturday.
In the last week, Jamie has won races at Waverley, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay and Riccarton and now well in front on the Trainers' Premiership - the table below is as of today (NZTR):
Premierships are based on performances during each racing season (August 1st - July 31st). The jockey and trainer with the most wins at the end of the season are the Premiership winners. These statistics are updated daily.
| Wins | 2nds | 3rds | Stakes | Starts | G & L | SR | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jamie Richards | 22 | 5 | 8 | $631,107 | 72 | 5 | 3.27 |
| 2 | Kevin Myers | 16 | 12 | 18 | $256,468 | 147 | 0 | 9.19 |
| 3 | Chris Gibbs & Michelle Bradley | 16 | 9 | 13 | $254,457 | 119 | 0 | 7.44 |
| 4 | Murray Baker & Andrew Forsman | 15 | 11 | 7 | $400,995 | 103 | 3 | 6.87 |
| 5 | Paul Nelson | 9 | 7 | 4 | $237,152 | 39 | 1 | 4.33 |
| 6 | Team Rogerson | 8 | 12 | 9 | $169,352 | 115 | 0 | 14.38 |
| 7 | Stephen Marsh | 8 | 12 | 6 | $155,950 | 76 | 1 | 9.5 |
| 8 | Michael & Matthew Pitman | 6 | 8 | 10 | $358,751 | 74 | 1 | 12.33 |
| 9 | Lisa Latta | 6 | 8 | 7 | $199,762 | 66 | 1 | 11 |
| 10 | Nigel Tiley | 6 | 8 | 7 | $171,965 | 38 | 1 | 6.33 |
| 11 | Tony Pike | 6 | 8 | 6 | $157,997 | 51 | 1 | 8.5 |
| 12 | Brian & Shane Anderton | 6 | 6 | 3 | $186,538 | 26 | 2 | 4.33 |
| 13 | Lance O'Sullivan & Andrew Scott | 6 | 1 | 5 | $96,135 | 32 | 0 | 5.33 |
| 14 | Shaun & Emma Clotworthy | 5 | 4 | 3 | $81,660 | 46 | 0 | 9.2 |
| 15 | Roger James & Robert Wellwood | 5 | 2 | 3 | $63,815 | 27 | 0 | 5.4 |
I wonder if any young trainer has ever made a start to their training career like Jamie has - with two Group 1's, two Group 2's and a Group 3 already as part of his 22 wins - just 10 weeks in to the new season.
The two statistics that interest me most are the number of Group/Listed wins (5) and the strike rate (3.2) - Jamie's strike rate tells me that he is putting the right horse in the right race and that is a crucial part of training horses.
Just as importantly - I would like to thank everyone who works with us at Te Akau - without you these amazing results would not be achievable so thank you to our stable team, stud team, our veterinary team, farrier team, feed experts - everyone that gives us so much support!
Looking back over some of the interesting facts around our winners of this past week ...
Did you see our filly Queen of the Air win on Thursday for former Te Akau apprentice Sam Collett? She is an I Am Invincible filly and I am told that she broke the track record when she bolted in - that's quite something - a maiden breaking a track record!
I bought Te Akau Shark from the Karaka Ready to Run Sale for $230,000 and he joins a list of top line successes from this sale for Te Akau such as Gingernuts, Hall of Fame, Flying Fulton etc. My focus for the next month is buying the next Te Akau Shark or Gingernuts or Hall of Fame with that sale coming up in November.
If you are interested in investing with us in this great industry, then now is a terrific time to be involved - you will be made to feel very welcome - email Karyn now to be on our priority list - [email protected]
Well done to the Canterbury Jockey Club in running its North Canterbury meeting yesterday after the hiccup on Saturday. It was great to see Jamie produce our first two year olds for the season and to quinella the race worth $22,500 which gives both Puysegur and Challa valuable prize money for the Karaka 2YO Million in January, a race Te Akau has won for the past two years with Melody Belle and Avantage.
Lots has been said about the impressive debut by Fastnet Rock filly Puysegur, a three quarter sister to Avantage who was bred and is raced by Karen and Willie Calder - she looks something special. I was however also impressed with our runner up Challa, a Dissident colt that I purchased from Karaka for $100,000. He has a lot of improvement still to come and he will be heading for the Million for sure, all going well.
In my opinion, the mistake made at Riccarton that saw Saturday's meeting postponed was not putting on more water seven or eight days ago. Yesterday's meeting was the Guineas' Trial which we won with Our Flying Ace, a Darci Brahma gelding I also purchased from Karaka. That means they want as many young horses as possible to run in the Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas (which we have won five times). So to my thinking, prepare a track whereby young horses won't go shin sore or jar up so a week before the meeting: water the track to say a 5, that dries out to a 4 at 7.30am on race day and that is then a 3 or 4 by the first race.
To be fair, being a track manager isn't the easiest career in the world but if they did this, there would not be many cancellations. The downside of course is if heavy rain falls the day before the races, putting the track out to say a 5 or 6 but - and this is the main point - yes the track would be dead but we would be racing safely and that's what matters!
Anyway, I am so pleased as I say that I am not a racing club manager because it is impossible to please everyone and people are quick to criticise.
This week I am putting my first crop in on the farm. We are ploughing two paddocks up and putting a summer crop in to fatten the lambs during the dry months. Quite a lot of rain is predicted for later in the week which will be very welcome across the whole of the North Island. At Te Akau we have good quality grass across the whole farm but certainly no surplus, so rain would put a real smile on the face of the Te Akau farmer.
Good luck to team tangerine racing today at Taupo: a promising staying filly called Spirit of Galway who I purchased from the Ready to Run Sale lines up in the two year race as does a lovely Camelot filly out of the smart race mare Holy Moly. She is on debut and is named Enduring Love and I purchased her from the Magic Millions' January Sale. They are in the first race and in the sixth race we will see Christopher and Susanna Grace's talented Motivation and stablemate Meteoric Lass who has the perfect record of one start, one win. Tomorrow we will have seven starters at Wairarapa including two year olds Vino Bella and Xplosion, a full sister to the stakes' winning Xpression.
Last night I purchased a promising 4YO gelding in Australia that we will be sending to our Te Akau Singapore trainer Mark Walker - he has already won three times and placed three times in 12 starts and already earned close to $180,000 in Australia. He was only sold as he was bred and raced by a major international stable with a focus on colts and entires.
This gelding will target the lucrative 4YO Singapore Series as well as the Group 1 Singapore Derby - we will be offering shares today so be quick - the stakes in Singapore, which include an owner's starter incentive, are a hugely attractive reason for racing there and don't forget that Karyn is taking a small owners' tour there next May!
If you want to be in, email Karyn now ... a 10% share will be $18,100 and a 5% share is $9,050 which includes full training fees for 12 months - he has a very "interesting" name that we will have a competition with his new owners to change!!