Te Akau Weekend Update

David writes:

The weekend started in great fashion with Clutha Lad winning in equally fine fashion in Singapore on Friday night.  I purchased this Thorn Park gelding from the draft of Blandford Lodge for $36,000 at the Karaka Select sale and now he has won just on $200,000 in Singapore.  Well done to Terry Stewart, Lynne and Wayne Watts, May Maulder, Bruce and Kethana Dunnet and Matt Jamieson who share in his ownership.

We have some really interesting runners lining up in Singapore tonight including Fine Choice, a 2YO we bought from the South Island sale for $21,000 who debuts in a $90,000 event.  We love nothing more than following the Te Akau trained horses.  It's brilliant how well Mark is doing in Singapore and our Racing Manager Jamie Richards, who organises the sending of the horses to Singapore, has another 13 ready to travel in the next six weeks.  Many of our owners really enjoy racing their horses in Singapore.

Wasn't it unbelievable to watch the cricket between the Black Caps and the West Indies yesterday?  What a weekend - rugby, rugby league, cricket, Tauranga races, Singapore races and of course Golden Slipper day!  Hard to move away from the TV!  I got dizzy trying to keep on top of what we were wanting to watch!  and on top of that, it was my job to cook dinner.  We had my eldest daughter Jo and her husband Leon to stay and what a fun day and night we had - in fact they left about an hour ago.  This morning we also had my son Davey and his fiancee Lucy here for breakfast and they all love my whitebait fritters.

It was great having Karyn home again too - you have to take your hat off to her - on Wednesday afternoon she was under general anaesthetic in hospital in Auckland to have a cyst removed from her jaw and three days later she is up and running and back on TV and despite being in a lot of discomfort, has spent the whole day today working in the office.

Going back to the cricket though - I so deeply admire the way that captain Brendon McCullum (pictured below with me at Karaka after joining us in a new filly) has this New Zealand team firing.  They are so competitive and yet are still good sorts, they seem gracious and are great role models to the young fans.  Gosh I hope that we beat South Africa on Tuesday and I can promise you that we will be watching every single ball, probably like most of the nation - GO THE BLACK CAPS!

The farm has changed colour with the rain we have had but of course we haven't had enough and more is needed to ensure a really good autumn.  Cattle prices continue to rise and once the real rain arrives, cattle will be very short in numbers and hard to buy.  We are heavily stocked in anticipation of that.

The shares in our yearlings are still selling well - barely a day goes by when we don't sell a couple of shares.  The "fully sold" sign has gone up on another two yearlings - our Zacinto colt, the half brother to Vespa (and we have a waiting list on him) and now the same has happened with our Stravinsky filly out of Miss Zapper.

One colt that I am surprised that we still have shares available in is Lot 95 our Fastnet Rock colt out of the Galileo mare Ocean Pearl.  This well-bred colt was bought at what I thought was outstanding value of $220,000.

So a 10% share in him would only cost $22,000 plus GST or a 5% share just $11,000 plus GST.  Karyn and I have taken a share in him, we both like him a great deal.  His family is full of Group 1 winners - Arctique Royale (his 3rd dam) won the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas, Cerulean Sky won the Group 1 Longchamp Prix Saint-Alary, Moonstone the Group 1 Irish Oaks and many others.

We have a really busy week coming up with lots of entertaining and welcoming friends and owners to the farm.  It's all great fun, especially when our friends stay and it is only two weeks before Karyn and I head to Sydney to the Easter Sale and we will be at Royal Randwick for the first day of the The Championship Races on April 4 featuring four Group 1's - the $3 million Doncaster Mile, the $2.5 Million TJ Smith Stakes (for 2YOs and upwards), the $2 million Australian Derby (for 3YOs) and the second leg of the 2YO Triple Crown, the $1 million Inglis Sires.

Have a great week!