Te Akau Monday Update

David writes:

What a fantastic week it has been for Te Akau Racing!

Our Australian stable is on fire with five winners from six starters over the past week and a half - including Melody Belle's first foal Lyrics 'N' Song and talented mare Koko - both victorious for their respective owners, Yu Long Investments and Carol and Howard Riley. 

In New Zealand we kick started the weekend with home-bred and syndicated Queen of Naples and also impressive debutant winner Getupoffathatthing both saluting the judge at Riccarton and Taupo respectively.

Then to win black type races on both sides of the Tasman on the same day, as Te Akau did on Saturday, is a thrill that is very hard to describe. Days like that make me realise just how well everything is working across Te Akau and how fortunate we are to have the horses, owners and team of people that we do.

Traditionally, Te Akau never wins a huge number of races across the winter months, until the tracks start to firm up, so I have been particularly pleased with the way our horses have been trialling and racing in recent weeks. Even on the softer winter and early Spring tracks, in most cases our equine team has been performing really well, and that gives us plenty to look forward to as the weather improves and we head further into Spring.

It was really exciting to see Lara Antipova win so well in Melbourne on Saturday. It was an honour for the whole team to win the inaugural Listed Mike Moroney at Flemington, a race honouring the late Kiwi trainer. I thought two-time Melbourne Cup winning jockey Mark Zahra rode her a treat!  She is a very exciting filly and to see her produce a performance like that in Melbourne was a huge thrill for everybody involved. 

I purchased this Russian Revolution filly for A$100,000 at the Magic Millions' Gold Coast Sale. She went through her 2YO season unbeaten in New Zealand, including winning the Group 1 Sistema Stakes.  This impressive juvenile season saw her crowned 2025/26 Champion 2YO at the NZTR Horse of the Year awards last weekend.

Back home, Sweetest Thing was very tough winning the Listed NZB Canterbury Belle Stakes at Riccarton, the sixth time the stable has won this event. Sweetest Thing is a filly I believe has a lot of improvement still to come, which makes her future particularly exciting.  She was purchased by Glentree Racing privately, and given to Te Akau to train.  We felt very proud to secure black type with her for her new owners.

I was also very taken with her stablemate Sword of Stars, with the filly finishing a very close up third from a wide gate. I thought her performance showed us that she too could be in for a pretty exciting season.

Seeing Hakkinen win the last race at Riccarton on Saturday was also particularly satisfying. He is a horse bred at Te Akau Stud and I think he has quite a few more wins to come. There is always something extra special about watching a horse that has been bred and raised at the farm go on and win races.

Congratulations to Sam and Reece, and to Hunter and our South Island team.  A very passionate and dedicated team doing a wonderful job - as was highlighted by Te Akau's Riccarton stable again being the Champion South Island stable for last season. Last Friday we celebrated Enchantment being awarded the 2025/26 South Island Champion 2YO of the Year and Origin of Love claiming the Champion 3YO title. Well done to her owners and to our team for all the time and care they always give to our horses.

While you will see the tangerine team start to fly in New Zealand as the tracks improve, in Victoria the team has had an excellent start to the new season. 

Our strike rate in Melbourne is currently 27.3%, which is something I am incredibly proud of - an impressive 42.4% of our horses are also placing ie second or third. Racing in Melbourne is as competitive as anywhere in the world and you simply don’t achieve a strike rate like that without very good horses and an outstanding team behind them. Mark Walker, our assistant trainer Ben Gleeson and everybody involved with our Cranbourne operation are doing a fantastic job.

As I dictate this update, I am actually driving around the whole farm at Te Akau with my dictaphone beside me.

Overall, I think we had quite a tough winter from a grass point of view. At one stage we had nine frosts in a two-week period, which certainly slows everything down, but despite that we have had a record lambing season.

I honestly don’t think I have ever seen so many lambs!

The docking tallies have been quite incredible and we are going to finish up with an overall lambing percentage of around 175–180%, which is just fantastic.

A lot of the credit for those great lambing percentages goes to Waimai Romney, where I buy all my rams. Alistair Reeves and his family breed the most unbelievable romney sheep and I have enormous respect for what they produce.  We are also very lucky to train two horses for the Reeves' family and both of them won last week! So that gave all of us another great buzz.

The farm is really starting to change now as Spring arrives. The grass is certainly beginning to grow, the ewes and lambs are on a really nice pick, and our steers are now standing in four or five inches of grass. It is only going to get better over the next few weeks.

Most days we are buying store cattle and at present we have 200 yearling steers on the farm. In about six weeks we will start selling our forward steers, so there is always plenty happening here - racing horses might get most of the headlines, but Te Akau Stud is a very busy farming operation every day of the year. People like Luke and Mick who work beside me running the farm are top class!

It has also been a very busy few weeks personally for Karyn and me.

Last Friday in Auckland I had my last immunotherapy treatment, and I can tell you it is a big thrill to have that behind me.

On Saturday night Karyn and I attended a fundraising dinner for St Paul’s Collegiate at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, and what a beautiful night it was. It was so well organised and it was a privilege to be part of an evening raising funds for such a great school, doing amazing things! It was terrific to catch up with so many people I hadn’t seen for a long time. I always enjoy talking with people you don’t get the opportunity to see very often, and there were plenty of old friends and familiar faces in the room.

Tomorrow we are heading back to Auckland for the Warriors annual awards' event as guests of Cameron George and Andrew Webster, which we are really looking forward to.

Back to the horses - and I have honestly lost count of how many shares we have sold in the last ten days!

The sales of our horses is going unbelievably well and we now only have shares remaining in a handful of our Karaka and Magic Millions purchases.

One horse I am absolutely staggered that we still have a share available in is the Pinatubo colt out of Darook Park that we bought at Magic Millions for A$120,000.

His sale number was Lot 206 and he has now been named Pavonis. We have just 12.5% remaining in him and I think he is a cracker - the main picture is him at the yearling sale in January and wow is he furnishing into a magnificent individual.  Sam and Reece are really taken with him and he jumped out like a real pro last Thursday.

Pinatubo was an extraordinary racehorse - an unbeaten Champion Two-Year-Old and Horse of the Year, winning all six of his starts at two including the Group 1 National Stakes and Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes. A three-time Group 1 winner, he is by the outstanding Shamardal and comes from the family of hugely influential stallions Invincible Spirit, Kodiac and Pride Of Dubai.

What really excites me now is the start Pinatubo has made at stud. He is quickly establishing himself as one of the most exciting young sires in both hemispheres, with his first Australian-bred runners already producing stakes and Group 1 performers. Buyers have certainly taken notice too, with his yearlings selling for as much as A$700,000 at Magic Millions.

And then there is Pavonis himself.

He is a true natural in the stable and the team is very impressed with his work, his attitude and the ability he is showing us. He does everything asked of him and is one of those young horses that really catches your eye.

I thought he was very good buying at Magic Millions and everything we have seen from him since has only reinforced that view. With what his sire is now achieving and what this colt is showing us at home, I am genuinely surprised that we still have 12.5% available.

If you would like to know more about Pavonis, please ring me anytime on 021 925 151, or email Karyn at [email protected] and she will happily send you his latest stable updates.

You can also see more of Pavonis, including his pedigree and information, on our website here:

Meet Pavonis – Pinatubo ex Darook Park colt

Tomorrow we have a team of horses trialling at Ellerslie and three of our talented farm team are going up to assist our stable team.  We are really lucky at the moment to have such a fantastic team of people. In fact, I believe the team we have now is probably the best we have had in the history of Te Akau — and that is across all our stables as well as here at the farm.  They work incredibly hard, they care about the horses and they care about Te Akau, and I am very proud to have them working for us.

There is a real sense of excitement building now. The Spring horses are coming through, the tracks will hopefully continue to improve and we have some lovely young horses getting ready to step out, as well as our more experienced performers.

We are certainly entering into a very exciting time of the season and there is plenty for the whole tangerine team and our owners to look forward to.

Thank you, as always, for your support!  Go the Tangerine!