Te Akau’s training wins tally on the rise
the tyro training partners soak up a remarkable run of form capped by another Group One victory at Riccarton last Saturday.
When Risque hit the line in the $300,000 New Zealand Bloodstock 1000 Guineas, completing a classic double after Xtravagant’s demolition job a week earlier in the $400,000 New Zealand 2000 Guineas, she took the stable tally for the season thus far to 31 wins. Risque’s big result was also the coup de grace for the resident trainers at Te Akau Racing. They won every race they contested on the final day of the New Zealand Cup carnival, beginning with Vive La Difference and Flaming in support races and continued by Smart ‘N’ Sassy in the two-yearold feature, the Listed Barneswood Farm Welcome Stakes.
A final tally of the Te Akau team’s huge South Island spring campaign stands at 17 wins, with all 11 horses sent south from Matamata the winner of at least one race. Winning big races is no new experience for Stephen Autridge, but he’s having trouble recalling a period in his long career to match the past few weeks. For 26-year-old Jamie Richards, success of this magnitude after just six months at the helm of one of the country’s most powerful stables is the stuff of dreams for someone who grew up in a high profile Otago racing family. ‘‘After the spring we’d already had down south, then to win the big one on the first day and three more early on the last day, I went into the 1000 Guineas thinking we might have used up all our luck,’’ Stephen said after stable jockey Matt Cameron had brought Risque home first from another Matamata filly, Graham Richardson’s Strada Cavallo. ‘‘No, it’s been great, a real team effort. We’ve set the bar fairly high but we’re up for anything that comes along.’’