Te Akau Tuesday Update

David writes:

I cannot remember a year since I started farming on my own account in 1979 when we have had so many frosts through winter. It was another beauty this morning.

There are some good and bad things that come from frosts. The good thing is that when you are in the middle of lambing you lose very few lambs in the fine weather. The mornings start off very cold, but you finish up with beautiful days. The bad thing about the frosts is that the grass stops growing completely after a frost until the next time you get rain.

We are now about 80% of the way through lambing and I couldn’t be happier with how the lambs are doing. We are going to start docking the five-year-old ewes next Thursday, and the mixed-age ewes will be done about two weeks later.

On Sunday I took two of my team from the farm, Faith Pollock and Jana Wight, to the Taupo races to help look after the horses. We had six horses in the first two trials and the first trial was won by Drops of God, who I think is one of the best fillies in the stable. I can certainly see her winning a Group One this season. She went nearly two seconds faster than the second trial, which was also impressive.

I would like to congratulate the Taupo Racing Club and Club President Terry Campbell for putting on such a great day’s racing. Yes, it was cold, but we are still in winter so it was to be expected.

The incredible effort the club went to on the day, with its first ever stakes race, was an absolute credit to everyone involved. Terry and his team do such a great job and it is something the industry can be very proud of. It was also good to see people on the committee like Gerald Fell all working so hard. Every race had a cash sponsor, which is very hard to do in this day and age.

They made everybody feel so welcome. There was a great buzz at the course and it was a very well-organised and enjoyable day out.

It was also the first day in the role for our new Racing Manager, Tom Murphy. I am really looking forward to introducing Tom to all our owners - you will be very impressed, I can tell you!

Tom is an outstanding young man, a very, very good horseman and he has an incredible eye for detail. I know he will be very good at the job.

It was also great to have Assistant Trainer Reece Trumper back at work after he had a month off in Europe on a very well-earned holiday.

Reece is coming to the farm today to inspect the horses that are spelling and, gee, they are all coming along beautifully. It is great weather to spell horses and you can really see how happy they all are.

There is plenty happening across the Tasman too, with a very exciting group of our Te Akau Australia horses heading to Caulfield tomorrow for jump outs as they continue building towards their spring campaigns.

Our Group One winners Belle Cheval, Geegees Mistruth and Seize The Day will all step out, alongside an exciting three-year-old filly Wonderful Sky.

Mark Walker and the team at Cranbourne have been very happy with the way they are progressing, and it will be another important step in their preparations as Victorian racing begins to build towards the spring. We have some very exciting horses in Australia this season and I am really looking forward to seeing what they can achieve.

It is so exciting to see how much all our horses are flourishing as we head towards spring, which is now only ten days away! The team has been busy preparing them for what promises to be an exciting season ahead.

There are some lovely young horses coming through the ranks and we are looking forward to seeing them develop even more over the next few months.

We do still have shares available in some really nice horses, and one filly I particularly want to draw your attention to is our I Am Invincible filly out of Isola Blu. I thought she was one of the nicest fillies we bought at the Magic Millions this year and I was thrilled to secure her for $360,000 from Yarraman Park.

We obviously know I Am Invincible very well through Imperatriz, who we bought at this same sale and went on to win 10 Group One races for us, and we are always looking very closely at his fillies. This girl is a beautiful, strong filly with a lovely temperament and a terrific way of going. She is out of the stakes-producing mare Isola Blu, who has already left four individual winners, including dual stakes winner Solaia.

I really think she is the sort of filly who can race at two and then continue to improve at three, four and five. She has plenty of quality about her and, importantly, there is only 7.5% still available. I think she is a very exciting filly to be involved with. Learn more about her here: https://teakauracing.com/yearling/lot-398-i-am-invincible-aus-isola-blu-aus-bay-filly

Have a look at her on our website and, if there is a horse that has caught your eye, feel free to email Karyn. She will be able to provide you with the most recent updates from our stable and answer any questions you may have: https://teakauracing.com/yearlings-shares | [email protected]

You can also call me anytime on 021 925 151 and I will be happy to recommend a horse that will suit you and your budget - we have a horse for everyone and would love to have you involved with Te Akau Racing.

This Saturday is Foxbridge Plate Day at Te Rapa - one of the big days of the season that we are very much looking forward to.

Best of luck to all our owners with runners this week. We cannot wait to see you on the track for what is shaping up to be a very exciting season ahead!