Te Akau Monday Update
Date: 24 Jan 2022
David writes:
What a fantastic evening's racing we all had at Ellerslie on Saturday night for the Karaka Million meeting!
Congratulations must go to everyone that played a part in putting on this great night's racing.
ATR Chairman Doug Alderslade and Board, CEO Paul Wilcox and his dynamic team, track manager Jason Fulford and his team - everyone at Ellerslie needs to be applauded.
If it wasn't for New Zealand Bloodstock, this now iconic event would not take place so all kudos to them for putting this all together.
To Boys Get Paid (BGP) - what a great part they play in the whole evening. Well done to Luke Kemeys. What a great New Zealander he is and it is terrific for the New Zealand racing industry to have someone like Luke who plays a big part in encouraging young people to invest in, and enjoy, racing. What a result to have over $500,000 in the BGP Punter's Club and then return something like 27% on people's investment. Great skills!
From a Te Akau perspective - to win half the card on Karaka Million night and have a further two Group runner-up placings with Imperatriz and Festivity was amazing and so rewarding for the whole team, and especially for our owners.
To win BOTH the Million dollar races, the million double, as well as a Group 3 event is just something we all live and breathe for - these are the results that this whole tangerine team works so hard for, to achieve for our owners.
To finish first, third and fourth in the Karaka 2YO Million was a massive thrill. We are pinching ourselves that Dynastic, the winner, is our sixth Karaka Million winner in a row.
It was also a highly significant result for the whole breeding industry too - for Almanzor to have his first Southern Hemisphere winner in a million dollar race is just a dream come true. Even better, Dynastic is now his sire's first stakes' winner globally too. We can be very proud of that achievements - how special for Brendan and Jo Lindsay of Cambridge Stud who stand Almanzor to southern breeding time.
Congratulations too, to Roddy Schick and the team at Windsor Park Stud for breeding Dynastic.
We have twelve Almanzor's in our stable and they can all gallop and practically all of them will win races but they are not all early two year olds. They are generally late two year olds and three year olds and older - so the future for Almanzor is just so exciting.
I thought it was also a great effort from Pin Me Up to win the final race on the programme, and our second million dollar race of the night - the Karaka 3YO Million Classic. Our warmest congratulations go to bloodstock agent Andy Williams - well done Andy on buying the filly for his very good friend Peter Collier from Australia, who then entrusted her to Te Akau. This filly obviously has a lot of upside and is very exciting . Pin Me Up's win was our 23rd black type winner so far for the season - 19 of these wins are in New Zealand and four are in Australia.
I also got a big thrill out of seeing Sword of State back in winning form. He has of course will stand at Cambridge Stud in the future and it is pretty obvious to me what an exciting stallion he is going to become. I also thought I Am Invincible filly Imperatriz put up a huge run to run second to the colt. A win for Imperatriz is not too far away, there was a very large margin back to third.
It was very appropriate that Sword of State, running in Cambridge Stud's colours, actually won the race sponsored by Brendan and Jo - the Group 3 Almanzor Cambridge Stud Trophy - nothing like winning your own race team! Well done!
A special salute to Jamie Richards and all our team at Te Akau and Matamata because these results are simply outstanding. To win six 2 year old Karaka 2YO Millions in a row and to win our tenth Karaka Million (including the 3YO Million) in ten years is a dream come true.
I would also like to congratulate all our owners who had runners on Saturday - including Irish Red who was third in the Listed Gore Guineas (earning valuable black type for her) - because without them supporting us, we don't have a stable. Therefore we are so grateful to all our owners - and if they did not have luck on the night, their turn will come as that is our complete focus, winning races for our owners.
In New Zealand alone, Te Akau owners have now won $4.28 million in prize money - the next best stable has won $1.45 million - so you can see it is a great time to be involved with the tangerine team.
We only have a small handful of shares now available in our Magic Million yearlings we bought this month from the Gold Coast. They are stand-out individuals who are due home this week - remember this is the ale where the likes of Group 1 winner Sword of State, Group 2 winner Imperatriz and debut stakes' winner bright Blue Sky all came from.
It was also great for our Te Akau Singapore trainer Donna Logan to have yet another winner in Singapore on Saturday night.
Meanwhile back at Te Akau Stud it is extremely dry. We have had a few showers today but we would need a week of rain to really get the grass away which I cannot see happening. But the stock are still killing out in good fashion. The steers are still weighing well and the lambs that were killed last week killed out at nearly 18 kgs which is a great result considering the dry weather.
I am really looking forward to the races at Trentham this weekend where they have a very exciting day coming up and Te Akau Racing has some good chances. I would like to wish our owners with runners this week all the best of luck.