With just two days of the 2015-16 racing
season remaining, Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards are able to lay
claim to the trainers’ premiership.
In their first full season training
together, the Te Akau Racing duo have prepared 104 winners for stakes of
$2,156,100 and a strike-rate of 5.32. Ten of the Matamata-based
stable’s winners were in black-type races and four of them – Xtravagant
(2), Risque and Heroic Valour – were at Group One.
Cambridge partners Murray Baker and
Andrew Forsman, who took the 2014-15 premiership with a record 114 wins,
are five wins adrift of Autridge and Richards, who have no further
starters this season. With only three runners listed for the final two
racedays of the season, Baker and Forsman will be unable to overhaul the
table toppers.
“We’ve been doing the sums for a while
now and we worked it out earlier in the week that we had the premiership
sewn up,” Autridge told www.theinformant.co.nz
this morning. “It’s been a year of highlights, but if I was to single
out the very best of them out, they would have to be during Cup week in
Christchurch when we won both Guineas races with Xtravagant and Risque,
then when Xtravagant overcame all the uncertainty and won the NRM Sprint
at Te Rapa, and Heroic Valour’s gutsy win in the Diamond Stakes at
Ellerslie.
“Group Ones are never easy, so to get
four of them, top the century in overall wins and now be able to claim
the premiership - it could hardly be more satisfying than that.”
Training premierships are not fresh
territory for Autridge, who claimed three when training in partnership
with Graeme Rogerson, but for Jamie Richards it is a whole new
experience.
Along with Autridge he was appointed only
15 months ago by Te Akau principal David Ellis to take the helm of the
New Zealand operation and now to find himself a premiership winner is
the stuff of dreams.
“When I joined Te Akau three years ago I
had no idea where it would take me,” admitted Richards, who at age 26 is
New Zealand’s youngest premiership-winning trainer. He took that mantle
from predecessor Mark Walker, who was 31 when he claimed his first of
five New Zealand titles in 2003-04.
“But thanks to everyone in the
organisation and all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes, here
we are, somewhere that I never thought possible in such a short space of
time.
“I couldn’t have achieved any of it
without David and his decision along with Mark to put their faith in me.
We have lovely horses that they’ve bought and syndicated to work with
and it’s very satisfying to get these results.”
This latest title takes to six the number
of trainers’ premierships won by Te Akau New Zealand, to which Walker
has added the 2015 Singapore trainers’ title.
“It’s a phenomenal achievement and I
believe the first time it has ever been done, for the same operation to
win premierships in two counties in the same year,” commented David
Ellis.
“These sorts of results only come about
through massive commitment and incredible hard work and dedication. I
must be the proudest guy in the world today.”
Dennis Ryan
The Informant