Te Akau Weekend Update

David writes:

I often get asked what drives me - why do I keep buying yearlings? - why don't I just retire and take things easy??!!

I couldn't think of anything less that I would like to do and that's a fact!  I simply love winning races for our owners and to win yet another Ray Coupland Stakes (Te Akau's seventh) yesterday - and actually quinella the race with horses that I have purchased is a thrill that money can't buy.

Costa Viva was bought by me on the Gold Coast for A$100,000 for Dave and Nicky Hurst and their friend Dianne Ford and clients of Te Akau, Ray and Jan Batten.

While we were inspecting the yearlings, Jason went down one alley and Mark and I went down another.  At the end of the day, Jason had a couple of horses for us to look at and Mark and I chose this bay Encosta de Lago filly.

Dave and Nicky Hurst are certainly not new to Te Akau - we have won six Group 1 races for them with King's Chapel who was Champion 3YO, Champion Miler and Horse of the Year and also Maroofity who was Champion 2YO and trained on to win black type at three and another Group 1 as a 4YO.

Look out for the horse that finished second in the same race yesterday - Chambord will be hard to beat in the Group 1 NZ 2000 Guineas.  This Zabeel gelding is out of a Montjeu mare and I bought him for $200,000 from the draft of Cambridge Stud.  His was the run of the race I thought, although Costa Viva will improve a great deal with the run under her belt.

Chambord is part of a two-horse syndicate that I put together to win big cups.  The other horse in the syndicate is called Maestro - an Encosta de Lago gelding out of the top Pencarrow mare Miss Scarlatti.  This horse has been working in super style and will trial in about 10 days.

So congratulations to Jason for a terrific training performance and well done too, to Pam who is in the south and our whole team.  It was also yet another good ride from Matt Cameron who is in great form and is currently joint leader of the Jockeys' Premiership.

We have five horses so far in residence at Riccarton that Pam (our Assistant Trainer) is looking after.  They are staying on the property run by Lance Robinson who has a terrific set up and is doing a great job for us.

So finally to cap off the successful day we sat down to watch the All Blacks see the Wallabies off and I thought that is was a top class game to watch - well done boys!