David Hayes won every Premiership in Melbourne and Adelaide for five straight years after taking the reins at Lindsay Park in the early 90′s. He was the first Australasian trainer to lead in 300 winners in a season and on Derby Day in 1994 he set a world record of training six Group winners in one day at the one race meeting.
Hayes trained Jeune to win the Melbourne Cup and took Better Loosen Up to Japan for an unforgettable win. His next challenge was Hong Kong where he had Top 4 finishes in the trainers premiership all nine years he was based there, including two wins.
But has he ‘lost it’ since returning to Australia? No-one can say for sure whether his rivals have overtaken him in the ability to train horse, but what can’t be argued is the fact that from a punting perspective his stable has a terrible record.
Over the last 5 years Hayes’ runners have a dismal 12% winning strike-rate and at level stakes his runners lose 30 cents in the dollar. That loss on turnover has worsened each season that he has been back which adds fuel to the argument that his rival trainers have overtaken him.
Let’s compare Hayes record to 10 of his contemporaries:
Trainer (Win S/R, Profit on Turnover)
Waller (24, -19)
Waterhouse (21, -15)
Freedman (18, -16)
Price (18, -8)
Moody (18, -14)
Kavanagh (18, -15)
Snowden (17, -14)
Kent (16, -21)
O’Brien (16, -14)
Pride (16, -4)
Hayes (12, -30)
Hayes’ loss on turnover is literally twice the rate of those other trainers, all of whom have a substantially better winning strike-rate as well. He has been renowned as a trainer of 2 year-olds and these runners lose 17% on turnover which isn’t great, but is a vast improvement compared to his 3 y/o and older horses.
Hayes is a deserving member of Australian racing’s Hall-of-Fame, but there is no way he’d make the shortlist for a profitable punting Hall-of-Fame. I am not saying that he can’t train as that would be a ridiculous statement considering his career achievements. But I am definitely saying that his winning strike-rate is very poor and that punters seriously over-rate the likelihood that his horses will win. You should be quite wary when considering betting on his horses because very few go around at a value price.
Good punting
David Duffield
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I totally agree with you re. David Hayes, my comments as follows.
In his big years as mentioned, he had the caliber of horses of which anyone with slight intelligence could have trained, however in his defense the last couple of years the quality has not been there particularly Melbourne City class, as an example a Saturday about a month ago he had a total of 3 runners for the meeting with the lowest pre post price being $18.00 out to $51.00. Also look at what he is running this coming Saturday Zagreb and The Fuzz !!! must be hard up for runners. The other thing that I believe there is a problem, is his relationship with the leading stable Jockey, been through a few over the years and surely they can not all be at fault.
Regards
John Allen
Agree John and he is going to need some good young horses coming through and at least one top liner if he is to regain his status as a top trainer.
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