Another day, another milestone for Jamie Richards.

The 31-year-old enhanced an already stunning season on Thursday, when he completed the fastest training century in New Zealand.

Richards, who heads the Te Akau Racing team at Matamata, recorded his 100^th domestic win for the season when Exaltation, a younger half-sister to stable star Melody Belle, won a rating 74 1400 at Hastings.

It is still rare for any stable to top 100 wins in a season and recording 100 wins in the first six months is an exceptional achievement.

Chris Waller, who has had more than 800 runners, is the only Australian trainer who has reached 100 metropolitan wins so far this term, and only one other Australian stable has reached 100 wins when including provincial and country wins.

Richards won just two races in August but has averaged more than four wins a week since, including 26 wins in October.

The previous quickest century came when Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman reached the landmark on April 26, in the 2017-18 season. Baker and Forsman went on to record a record 143 wins that term, a figure that Richards is on target to exceed this year.

Baker and Forsman sent the benchmark for the modern era when recording tallies of 114, 99, 107, 143 and 112 in successive seasons from 2014, with a strike rate of 4.79 in 2014-15 and less than six in the next three years. Over the same period, the Cambridge partnership won 14 Group races in Australia, including seven at Group I level.

Richards has had quantity and quality on his side this term but also has an impressive strike rate – 5.02 after Exaltation’s victory - which is a difficult mark to sustain over 500 runners.

He was unlucky not to have recorded a rapid century last season, as he was on 99 wins when Covid-19 halted racing, in late-March, and won with his first runner when racing resumed, in June. He finished the season with 101 wins from 497 runners.

He has already had more runners this term and has been a dominant force at the top level. The Te Akau team has won 21 black-type races in New Zealand this term, with the nearest challenger being the Roger James-Robert Wellwood partnership, with five.

The Richards haul in the current season includes five Group I wins in NZ, four at Group II level and seven Group III races. There have also been two Group wins in Australia, including the Group I Epsom Handicap.

That brings the stable’s overall Group haul for the season to 18, just two away from matching the 20 Group wins recorded by Baker and Forsman in the 2016-17 season.

Richards has been prepared to travel his horses to find the right opportunities and has won races on 22 NZ tracks this term, from Ruakaka in the north to Wingatui in the south.

But the emphasis has always been on the major meetings and the stable has won 18 races at Ellerslie this term, including six on Boxing Day.

Other highlights have included five wins on New Zealand Cup day at Ellerslie, a treble at Ellerslie on January 1 and three wins at the Karaka Million meeting at Ellerslie, including the first four placegetters in the Karaka Million 2YO.

Danielle Johnson ridden almost half of the Te Akau winners this term, with 48.

Richards is in his third term in sole charge at Te Akau, after spending three seasons in partnership with Stephen Autridge.

The Autridge-Richards partnership won the premiership in the 2015-16 season and Richards notched his first solo premiership last year and is almost 60 wins ahead of his nearest challenger at the half-way mark this year.

Richards has a remarkable strike rate in Group I races as a solo trainer, with 24 wins from 71 runners. He has been assisted by the presence of some top-class gallopers in the stable and two-thirds of those Group I wins have come through Melody Belle and Avantage.

However, there can be no doubt that Richards is a rare talent and, with his ability as a hands-on trainer, his management skills and a ferocious work ethic, he has the required mix of skills to successfully lead a large-scale training operation.