We set off early from Karen & Roger’s for Windsor Park Stud. Surprisingly for myself and Ash we were early arriving. Nelson Schick gave us a great welcome and we sat around chatting with him and his team over a welcome cup of coffee.
After lots of chin wagging it was time to look at some horses. First up were his stallions. Windsor Park stand a number of their own stallions along with a couple of northern hemisphere stallions that ’shuttle’ to NZ for the southern breeding season. One of his shuttle stallions is Ballymacoll bred and raced, Golan. Golan won two Group 1s for Ballymacoll and finished second in the Epsom Derby. He looked magnificent and according to the guys has been going well down there. We also saw High Chaparral, serial Group 1 winner, another shuttle stallion. The local bred stallions are much larger horses, sprinting types. We moved on for a tour of the rest of the farm. We saw the foaling, yearling and racing units.
Off then to Cambridge Stud, home of Sir Tristram, producer of 45 individual group 1 winners. Sir Patrick Hogan gave us a very warm welcome, with hats and brochures. His current roster of stallions (Sir Tristram is unfortunately long dead) were paraded for us. One Cool Cat looked fantastic and our final stallion to see was Zabeel, a son of Sir Tristram. He is 22 and looked to be getting on, but after some fertility research done in Kentucky he is still able to handle a book of 70 mares at $100k a pop. Cambridge Stud is immaculately kept, with flowers and trees in abundance. Sir Patrick, Nelson & Pa posed for some photos with Sir Tristram’s statue and we were off for lunch.
Conversation flowed over lunch and the three wise men debated the various aspects of foaling and breeding. The locals foal all their mares in paddocks while us visitors foal in stables. Tips and tricks were readily exchanged by all sides. Disappointly for Pa his flight to Wellington for imminent and it was time to head for Hamilton airport. We all said our goodbyes and dropped Ma & Pa off at the terminal.
Myself and Ash headed back for Auckland for the night. We stopped off to see Ash’s Mum’s cousin, Sister Irene, who is based in the Auckland suburbs. She was delighted to see us and filled us with tea, biscuits and sandwiches. We signed the visitors book, said hello to the other sisters living there and got on our way to our hotel. The hotel if fabulous, very fancy and quite reasonably priced. We popped into the city centre to take a look around. After a quick stop to pick up Davy’s left property (a wallet full of cash!!), we strolled down a pier. There wasn’t too much to see and we were back in the hotel soon enough. Tomorrow we are off to Christchurch!!