Father Dan Cummings would be the last person in the industry in New Zealand to promote himself and his boutique breeding operation as something special but after 35 years of continuous success, he doesn't have to.
Since the early 1980s, stock bred at the famous Tuapeka Lodge in Lawrence breeding operation have always commanded a premium at yearling sales in New Zealand.
Like Sandy Yarndley in the North Island, Dan lifted the whole preparation and presentation of yearlings to the next level in the South Island from the time he entered the marketplace.
Buyers know that yearlings prepared at Tuapeka Lodge have wanted for nothing from day one and when combined with maternal families that have continued to produce age group stars with monotonous regularity, the Tuapeka brand is stronger today than ever.
This year Tuapeka Lodge has ten yearlings entered at the New Zealand Premier Yearling Sale at Christchurch on the 23rd and 24th of February and after perusing the videos they would appear to us to have an outstanding group of yearlings this year.
In an attempt to narrow down what we think is the pick of the draft, we have watched the videos of each of the yearlings several times and one horse jumped out at us every time.
We are not sure Father Dan will appreciate us singling out one lot but we were so taken with him that we thought he deserved the attention.
Lot 456 on the second day at Christchurch is named Culpeka and he is a son of Mach Three from the 1:56.9 Christian Cullen mare in Tuapeka Maddy.
Tuapeka Maddy was lightly raced due to ongoing issues with tying up and retired after only a handful of starts but was held in high regard by the stud.
The second dam Letatalk has produced that special youngster already in the form of the Mach Three colt, Machtu 1:55.2 ($208,007) who has 16 wins on his card to date.
A daughter of Letatalk in Raconteur is the dam of the unbeaten Changeover filly, Talkerup 1:58.2 who is the early favourite for the $150,000 PGG Yearling Sales final for three year old fillies at Addington next week.
It is a pedigree full of black print which is very current through the deeds of Machtu and Talkerup so ticks all the boxes pedigree wise.
The individual himself is as classy as the pedigree.
To us he looked more like a two year old with a real touch of class rather than a yearling heading for the sale ring and the video only convinced us even more that this colt was the pick of the Tuapeka Lodge draft.
Tuapeka Lodge have set the standard at the yearling sales in the South Island since their inception and this years batch of yearlings is right up to their usual high standard.
To view the Premier Sale catalogue click here.
To visit Tuapeka Lodge online for all the Yearlings click on this link.
Harnesslink Media