LPR History

David’s father Colin, known affectionately as ‘CS’, commenced his training career in 1947 in Adelaide. He won his first Adelaide Trainers’ Premiership in 1955-56 from his ‘Surefoot Lodge’ stables (named after his first horse) at Semaphore in South Australia.

Colin Hayes Era

Inspired after a trip to the UK where he experienced horses trained in a country environment, Colin established Lindsay Park Racing Stables and Stud amongst the magnificent red gums and rolling hills of Barossa Valley, South Australia in 1965. The property was named Angaston.

It was a visionary move to take horses away from the traditional training circuit of a city track. With intuition and a masterful plan, Colin Hayes developed a world-class training complex drawing accolades from industry experts the world over. An ideal equine environment for breeding and training, it was to become the foundation of success for three generations.

Colin Hayes loved horses. In a 43 year career he trained 5,333 winners including 524 Group or Listed winners. His wins included two Melbourne Cups, four VRC Derbys, three Cox Plates, three Australian Cups, three Blue Diamonds, four Newmarket Handicaps, one Caulfield Cup, one Sydney Cup and Golden Slipper Stakes.

Colin also conducted a successful breeding operation from the Angaston property. Lindsay Park Stud became home to some of Australia’s most influential stallions including Without Fear, Zabeel, At Talaq, Jeune and Rory’s Jester. Colin had a strong passion for breeding and together with Robert Sangster, he broke new ground with the first ever shuttle stallion into Australia.

Colin Hayes established Lindsay Park as a dominant force in Australian racing and breeding for decades. Colin retired from training in 1990 and was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2001.

David Hayes Era

David started his career serving a thorough apprenticeship in his father’s stables where he experienced every aspect of the business. He spent time with the vets and farriers. He rode trackwork, strapped horses and mucked out stables.

At the age of 21, after a brief flirtation with a professional sporting career in Track & Field as well as Australian Rules Football, David joined the business full-time and began working side by side as an Assistant Trainer with his father.

David took over the training operation at Lindsay Park at the start of the 1990-91 season at the age of 28, following Colin’s retirement. During this first season, David won the Cox Plate with Better Loosen Up, set a world record of six Group winners in a day at Flemington on Derby Day and then won the G1 Japan Cup with Better Loosen Up a month later.

In 1994, he won the Melbourne Cup with imported galloper Jeune and by the end of the 1994-95 season, David had won every Melbourne and Adelaide Metropolitan Trainer’s Premiership and racked up an amazing 31 Group One wins.

In 1996, David accepted an invitation to train in the world’s toughest racing environment, Hong Kong. He was an immediate success winning two Trainer’s Premierships (top four in each of his nine seasons) and training 458 winners, including the Gr.1 Hong Kong Derby (Elegant Fashion in 2003) and 15 other Hong Kong Gr.1 races.

Returning to Lindsay Park in 2005 for family reasons, Hayes picked up where he left off, immediately securing another two Melbourne Metropolitan Trainer Premierships, three Adelaide Metropolitan Premierships and trained a further 40 Gr.1 winners.

In his career to date, David has trained in excess of 4000 winners, including 95 Group One wins. He became the youngest trainer ever to be inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2008, joining his father Colin.

David is married to Prue Hayes who works as Director of Lindsay Park and has four children; Ben, Will and JD are now the training partnership running Lindsay Park in Australia and Sophie, who works as Assistant General Manager.

Planning for the future: Euroa

The Hayes family motto, first adopted by Colin is: ‘The future belongs to those who plan for it’. Shortly after returning from Hong Kong, David and Prue Hayes made a plan for the future of Lindsay Park. The first part of the plan involved moving away from the breeding interests Colin had established to allow David to focus his attention exclusively on training. This was achieved in 2008 when David sold his share of Lindsay Park Stud to his nephew Sam Hayes and partners, now named Cornerstone Stud.

The next part of the plan involved centralising operations at a new purpose built facility in Victoria: Lindsay Park Euroa.

The new property is modelled on Lindsay Park Angaston and is designed to take advantage of the natural country environment that has been key to the success of Lindsay Park in the past, but with all of the modern technologies and features now available at metropolitan racetracks. The location of the property at Euroa allows a focus on Victorian racing and at the same time being within easy reach of Adelaide and Sydney Metropolitan Racing.

The next partnership

David Hayes and his nephew Tom Dabernig entered into an official training partnership under the Lindsay Park Racing banner on August 1, 2014.

Two years on, David brought his eldest son Ben into the partnership on August 1, 2016.

Ben grew up with racing in his sights, living in Hong Kong on the Sha Tin track. He gained valuable international experience working in the UK for Charlie Hills, and as a pupil assistant for trainer John Gosden in Newmarket, where he was in charge of the European preparation of Gr.1 winner Criterion.

Following David Hayes’ relocation to train in Hong Kong, a new partnership of Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes was formed and officially took over on the 10th July 2020. The success continued with the pair awarded the honour of Leading Trainer of the 2020 Flemington Spring Carnival, following their Gr.1 victory in the VRC Oaks with 3yo filly Personal and tallying five individual winners during Cup week.

At the end of the season in 2021, Tom made the decision to leave Lindsay Park so he could establish his own business in Warrnambool.

Step into the past with our image gallery:

A young C.S. Hayes pictured at Surefoot Lodge, South Australia.

Surefoot Racing Stables the first stable owned by C.S. Hayes located in South Australia.

Centre: Young C.S Hayes and his wife Betty Hayes.

Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II with C.S. Hayes at Lindsay Park Angaston in 1977.

Left to right: Peter and David Hayes 1986.

Left to right: Peter, C.S. and David Hayes.

David and C.S. Hayes celebrating Better Loosen Up winning the Cox Plate in 1990.

Left to right: Prue, Betty and David Hayes cheering on Better Loosen Up in the Cox Plate 1990.

Left to right: Jockey Brent Thompson and C.S. Hayes.

The Hayes Brothers Partnership

The third generation of Hayes family sons proudly and officially took up the Lindsay Park training reins on 21 June 2021 when Ben was joined by his younger brother JD to form a training partnership and open a new era in the 74-year long history of the Hayes family business. As sons of David and grandsons of Colin Hayes, the two have been finely educated in horsemanship and are firmly dedicated to continuing the integrity and success of the stable so the tradition can continue. On August 2, 2023, they were joined by JD’s twin brother Will, who played both VFL and AFL football before getting his trainer’s licence, creating a new definition of the Hayes training dynasty.