Te Akau Weekend Update

David writes:

I was really happy when I came out to the office at 5.30am this morning and saw the rain gauge - we had 12 mls overnight which is terrific follow up rain from what we had during the week.  I got drenched going around the farm this morning and the heat is gone so this is great for the farm.  The stock are still doing really well and the yearlings have all settled in so well from the sales and I am absolutely delighted with the quality of the young horses that we have bought this year.

Karyn, Julia-Rose and myself together with Jason, Jamie and Robyn thoroughly enjoyed the Open Day at New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka complex on Wednesday evening.  It was also great to have our stable rider Matt Cameron on hand to support us.  Although the weather was miserable and it rained the whole time, it was still a successful evening. We sold quite a number of shares to new people investing in the industry, in some cases for the first time.

I was surprised that there were not more breeders there - Mark Chittick, Mark Baker and Brent and Cherry Taylor we caught up with but I would have hoped more breeders would have been there to get in behind New Zealand Bloodstock and promote the ownership cause.  I guess most of them are on holiday after the sales but for us, this is one of our busiest times as we sell shares in horses.

It is an evening that I think will be built on and with better weather it will develop into a really successful promotion which is something, looking at the fields on race day we have at present, we are desperate for.

This week there was an article in the New Zealand Herald about my comments on the recent Karaka Sales and the trends in the New Zealand industry. As usual social media went mad with many different comments - some people writing in and bagging me or Te Akau under nom de plumes and that means nothing to me if they can't front their comments.  It is great because this sort of coverage means people read our website and buy shares in horses.

Of course what I was saying in the NZ Herald is reinforced with the fields I see today at Wairarapa by way of example and this will only accelerate - in the short term of course a five horse race is much easier to win than a 15 horse event but it is a situation that is untenable.

I do believe that the New Zealand government needs to make up its mind whether it wants a world class racing and breeding industry in New Zealand or not.  For example the New Zealand government supports boat racing, rugby, cricket, golf and many other industries/sports with significant taxpayer investment.

Speaking of investment too -  if you want to invest in sheep and went and purchased some breeding ewes tomorrow, your accountant would naturally depreciate those sheep.  We are still waiting for those clear guidelines on investment into our industry.

Put quite simply - the government, and I reiterate, has to decide what it wants as we can't complete when hundreds of millions of dollars are given back to racing and race clubs in Australia.  There were some warning signs at the sales this year that I find quite serious.

On the positive side we were able to buy world class yearlings at what I thought were terrific prices.  Starting with the sale topper, our filly who made $800,000.  She is as good an athlete as I have seen in the last 10 years.  When you think yearlings were making $800.000 at Trentham in 1987 at the Wrightson Bloodstock sales - to be able to buy the best filly in the sale, by a champion sire out of a champion mare 26 years later - this underlines what great buying she was.

Across the board we purchased a number of horses in the $80,000 -$150,000 bracket and one of the colts we are currently selling shares in is the Savabeel/Almaviva colt who I bought for $160,000.  Quite frankly he is as good a type of racehorse in the making as you will see - he was Lot 252 - if you would like a share them you will have to be very quick as there are now only four shares remaining in this half brother to Atacama who of course won the Listed Matamata Cup and was victorious in a stakes' race at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day before returning and being a very unlucky runner-up in the Group 2 Cal Isuzu Stakes at Te Rapa on Waikato Times Gold Cup Day.  The Cal Isuzu is the highest rated fillies and mares race in New Zealand almost every year.

We are really looking forward to a great days' racing at Te Rapa tomorrow where it is the inaugural Ladies' Day.  With the richest Group 1 WFA event in New Zealand now, the Herbie Dyke Stakes and the Group 1 NRM Sprint as well as the Group 2 Sir Tristram Fillies' Classic, I hope that you can all come and see top racing at a Group 1 club.