The tangerine army has touched down in Melbourne and it’s fair to say that Te Akau Racing Principal David Ellis is impressed by the facilities that his horses will have available to them at their new Cranbourne base.
“The facilities here are as good as I’ve seen anywhere in the world,” Ellis said.
“It’s quite incredible and no wonder it’s such a popular training track because the facilities are just second to none.”
Five-time Group 1 winner Imperatriz (I Am Invincible) will be Te Akau’s flagbearer this Spring Racing Carnival and Ellis is pleased with how she looks in her new surroundings.
The classy mare will also be Te Akau’s first runner from Cranbourne when she contests the Gr.2 McEwen Stakes at The Valley next Saturday.
“Just looking at her now, she’s come up really well,” Ellis said.
“She’d been working really well in New Zealand and she’s settled in incredibly well here.
“Our main goal is the final day at Flemington in November, the A$3 million (Champions) Sprint up the straight, so we’ll have her at her peak for that.”
While head trainer Mark Walker will remain in charge of preparing horses on both sides of the Tasman, the day-to-day operation of Te Akau’s Cranbourne stable will be run by Danny O’Brien’s former assistant Ben Gleeson.
Already Ellis has liked what he’s seen from the talented young horseman.
“He’s just an incredibly capable guy, very intelligent, gets on well with people and it was a very easy decision to make,” Ellis said of Gleeson’s appointment as assistant trainer to Walker.
Gleeson has recently spent time at the powerful Kiwi outfit’s headquarters in New Zealand and hopes to replicate their manner of doing things in Australia.
“They’ve just got an amazing family type feel to the business, the staff are incredibly close, they care for the horses,” Gleeson said.
“Mark (Walker) and Sam Bergerson, they’ve gone into partnership, they work incredibly well together. Just the cohesiveness of the team and the horses, every little one per-center is performed, so we’ll just have to carry that on here and we’ll attract the right staff and the right horses in time.”
Currently, Te Akau has three horses stabled at Cranbourne, but Ellis anticipates that that number will grow considerably as time goes on.
“We’d like to think we’ll have 60 horses in work here in the next two years for sure.”
