3 minute read
Rugby league star Paul Gallen could kick some big goals in racing if the exciting Kiwi four-year-old Te Akau Shark continues his rise to stardom.
Te Akau Shark is part-owned by Gallen and several of his Cronulla Sharks team mates. They are members of the Te Akau Racing syndicate who race the Rip Van Winkle gelding.
His dominant victory in Saturday’s G3 Red Badge Spring Sprint (1400m) at Hastings took his record to four wins from just five starts and has stamped him as a future G1 winner.Te Akau Shark was a $NZ 230,000 NZB Ready to Run Sale purchase by Te Akau chief David Ellis, who also shares in the ownership. He had been passed as a yearling at the 2016 Karaka sale on a reserve of $70,000.
The gelding’s dam is the G2 Waikato Gold Cup winner Bak Da Chief (Chief Bearheart), a half-sister to the dam of the G1 winner Pondarosa Miss (High Chaparral) and her brother, the multiple stakes winner Ecuador.New Zealand Bloodstock’s Ready to Run Sale has unearthed numerous big-race performers in recent years and Te Akau Shark is poised to join them.
The 17 G1 winners sold through the sale include Mongolian Khan, Gingernuts, Vin De Dance, Turn Me Loose, Gaultier, Dukedom and Hall Of Fame.David Ellis, an increasingly major Ready to Run player, also bought Gingernuts and Hall Of Fame from the sale.
Te Akau Shark began his career with two wins last spring before a fourth in the G1 NZ 2000 Guineas at Riccarton. That remains his only defeat, having begun his four-year-old season with back-to-back wins at Hastings.