Te Akau Racing has enjoyed tremendous success during its Australian forays and trainer Jamie Richards believes the key is to only travel the cream of the crop.
The outstanding young horseman has crossed the Tasman to win feature races with the likes of Melody Belle, Te Akau Shark and Probabeel, all of whom proved themselves in their homeland first.
“We believe they’ve got to be top shelf in New Zealand to be coming over here and being competitive,” Richards said.
“You can’t bring your second stringers because you get found out. You’ve got to bring the best of the best.
“At the moment we’ve got Melody Belle, Probabeel, Entriviere and Amarelinha at four different stables (in Sydney) so it’s pretty exciting for a trainer from New Zealand to bring that quality of horseflesh over and we’re hoping to get the job done on Saturday.”
With the exception of Melody Belle, who is being aimed at the Brisbane winter carnival, the Te Akau team will all step out at Randwick on day two of The Championships with proven mare Probabeel leading the charge in the G1 Queen Of The Turf Stakes (1600m).
She kicked off her campaign in brilliant form with successive wins in Melbourne, highlighted by her Futurity Stakes success, before heavy rain on race day crushed her All-Star Mile chances.
In hindsight, Richards wished they had scratched her.
“It was just really disappointing that we’d had such a great prep and were going into a $5 million race as favourite and two hours of rain just undid all our good work,” Richards said.
“That’s racing unfortunately. If we had our time again, we probably wouldn’t have run her because the track was definitely heavy.
“But we’ve travelled up to Sydney in good order. We’ve had a trial last Friday where she trialled well and she has done some nice work since.
“She has only got to hold her form from the autumn in Melbourne, or the spring in Sydney when she won an Epsom, to be competitive in this field.”
