$3m splurge lands Cup hope for David Hayes, now best tell the wife

A meeting with the son of Dubai’s ruler and a $5000 bet may change David Hayes’ Cup fortunes.

Trainer David Hayes with Cup favourite Constantinople. Picture: Aaron Francis

David Hayes had just spent almost $3m on two horses and “absolutely cacked myself”, he says with a laugh, because he had yet to tell wife Prue about his big outlay.

On Tuesday, in what will be the master trainer’s last Melbourne Cup, Hayes could more than make that money back as he saddles up favourite Constantinople in the most prestigious event on the racing calendar.

It is a big fancy that after an ­unlucky but impressive ride in the Caulfield Cup two weekends ago has hurtled into contention for Australia’s biggest racing prize.

It is all down to a chance viewing of a race in York, England, in August, and then, once Hayes got back to Melbourne to reveal his spend to Prue, a well-timed $5000 bet by a connection that helped him quickly find some owners for the two horses and offset his costs.

Hayes has two horses in Saturday’s $2m Victoria Derby at Flemington but admits he is looking forward to Tuesday. “We’re not going in with high expectations but we are competing in all the good races. On Tuesday, I’ll go in with high expectations.”

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An excited Hayes will wake ­before his alarm goes off, be at Flemington bright and early and have an extra spring in his step. These are the days, he ­explains to The Weekend Australian, that are the best of times.

“It is your chance to shine. I’m a dreamer. We want it that much. We just hope it will happen.

“This year would be my most special win. It is the last one ­realistically I will be competing in as a trainer. I’ll come back as an owner, but not as a trainer. I’ve won one, it would be nice to win two.” Hayes has won it all in a hall-of-fame career, including the 1994 Melbourne Cup with Jeune and just about every other Group I race in Australia. Cox Plates, Victoria Derbies, Caulfield Cups, he’s won it. There’s even a Japan Cup with Better Loosen Up in the trophy cabinet.

But the Melbourne Cup is the one Hayes still burns for. Since the Jeune triumph, there have been near-misses like Criterion ­famously getting beaten by rank outsider Prince of Penzance of Michelle Payne fame in 2015 — “That was the one that got away. I was devastated,” says Hayes — and his last pre-race favourite was Tawqeet in 2006.

Hence the sense of urgency this year, intensified by a big change looming that will see Hayes hand over his Lindsay Park racing business to son Ben and nephew Tom Dabernig in mid-2020. In future years, twins James and Will, the latter an AFL footballer with the Western Bulldogs, and daughter Sophie, now working for racing giant Godolphin, should become more ­involved.

Hayes, 57, will head to Hong Kong to take up a prized training role at what is considered the best racing jurisdiction in the world. It is a rare enough feat to get there, it is even rarer to head back given he spent almost 10 years from 1995 competing twice a week at Happy Valley and Sha Tin.

There is even a Hong Kong connection to the Cup, with Brazilian Joao Moreira, considered by many to be the best rider in the world, flying in on Sunday night to ride for Hayes after previous choice Glen Boss was suspended.

Boss rode Constantinople in trackwork and called it “the bomb”. Moreira, yet to win a Cup, said it was “the race I want to win the most”.

It was Hong Kong that put Hayes on the path to finding the horse. Racing is an international sport and if you connect the dots it was his Hong Kong move that led to a fateful trip to London and Constantinople arriving in Australia.

Hayes flew to London in late August to see Sheik Hamdan, a big owner of Lindsay Park horses and son of Dubai ruler and ­Godolphin owner Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, to inform him of the Hong Kong move, which was announced in September. While in London, Hayes travelled two hours north to York for its Ebor Festival of racing where he set eyes upon a three-year-old stayer he liked.

“I’d been looking out for a Melbourne Cup-style horse. Constantinople … ran a very good second in a good race. So I rang my friends at Coolmore (the world’s biggest thoroughbred breeder who owned the horse) and asked if it was possible if I could buy it.”

Hayes was told Coolmore wanted to retain 25 per cent of the horse and that it would cost $1.7m, which was reduced to $1.4m after some haggling and on the proviso he spend the same sum on Cape of Good Hope, a better breeding and stallion prospect.

“So I said yes, we shook hands and I absolutely cacked myself. I’d spent about $3m and I still hadn’t told Prue. I went there to tell Sheik Hamdan I was moving to Hong Kong and I ended up with these two horses.”

As it turned out, Cape of Good Hope would win the Group I Ladbrokes Stakes at Caulfield in ­October and Constantinople is favourite for the Melbourne Cup.

When Hayes got back to Melbourne he needed to inform Prue — known as Lindsay Park’s “minister for finances” who oversees the group’s business operations — and then find owners for the horses. While he won’t reveal his identity, Hayes went to one favourite owner in his extensive list of contacts. But being in the midst of a major property deal he could not afford a big chunk of the horse, though after being told of its potential he plonked down a $5000 bet for it to win the Melbourne Cup at 50-1.

“So then all of a sudden there’s headlines saying ‘Hayes buys Melbourne Cup favourite’ and it was the best sales pitch you could ever have,” Hayes says. “We were able to sell it very quickly. I got home on the Friday and it was all gone by Sunday.”

Though there has been some luck, Constantinople represents a big part of the Hayes succession plan with Lindsay Park, one that on closer inspection was always going to lead back to Hong Kong and has been under way since Hayes returned to Australia in 2004. Every year, Hayes and his entire family have flown to Hong Kong to maintain their Hong Kong ID cards. While living there, the children took daily Cantonese lessons and maintained their language studies when they returned to Australia.

While Hayes’s father Colin ­established the family business (first in South Australia, before Hayes moved to Euroa in central Victoria), he and Prue have been careful not to force their children into racing and insisted they all complete university degrees.

“We said to our kids don’t do if you don’t love it. It is not a job, it is a way of life. So if anything we steered them away from it, and they’ve steered themselves back to it,” says Prue.

But with Ben and cousin Tom now ready to take over in Australia, Hayes feels comfortable about the Hong Kong move. He says Constantinople should be competitive in big races for several years, meaning they start with good prospects, and that he wants to dabble in finding horses like that in Europe once his Hong Kong stint ends. For now, though, the Melbourne Cup looms. Lindsay Park looks set to have three runners, with Rostropovich and Neufbosc, but Constantinople is clearly their best hope.

A final decision will be made by Saturday night and then, after more work on Sunday, Hayes will host pre-race drinks for his owners at his Toorak house in Melbourne on Monday. “Often the build-up to these races is the best part. Even when I’ve won them I’ve enjoyed the pre-match more than the after-match.

“Constantinople has the good current form, it has one of the light weights and he will run two miles. So that is why he is the favourite. With a clear run he should be right in it. But they are very, very hard to win.”