Hungry Hayes eyes the main course again
Trainer David Hayes may hunger for a first Hong Kong Derby win at Sha Tin this afternoon, but he isn't letting anyone in on the suffering. 'It will happen one day. I hope this one is the day, but it will happen,' Hayes said calmly on the eve of today's race - a race which he has thus far found too slippery to hold.
Hayes has slapped the rumps of 16 runners as they went out to battle for the past five Derbies. He has greeted just three minor placegetters. In his most open moments, Hayes will tell you how much he wants a Derby in Hong Kong. Beneath his amicable exterior beats an unquenchable competitive appetite - and the beast is always ravenous.
'I think that, as a trainer, you have to want to compete on the big days and that is always my goal,' Hayes spills the truth. 'To me International Day is the biggest day in Hong Kong - the best horse in the Hong Kong Derby may not be world class, Derby races all over the world throw up mixed results - so winning with All Thrills Too against all-comers in the Hong Kong Sprint meant so much to me.
'But from a local owner's point of view, the Derby is something special, probably even bigger than the Internationals, because it is the pinnacle of your real expectations. You hope and you aim to win the best race your home can offer. If you happen to get a horse that can go further than that and beat the world, well, that's great. When any owner sets out here, that owner is looking for the best horse in Hong Kong - and that means you're looking for a Derby winner.'
With four Derby dreams delivered to his door this season, Hayes has accomplished the first mission by getting Elegant Fashion, Equator Kid, Helene Momentum and Beverly Green all into the race, fit, well and firing. Making one of those dreams reality falls to fortune's fickle hand.
'These are in-form horses but I'm not booming with confidence,' Hayes concedes. 'I have huge respect for Bowman's Crossing. I'm wary of the Jockey Club chairman, Ronald Arculli's horse, River Dancer. And there are others. I've gone into Derbies more confident and been beaten.'
Resfa's Derby was one, four years ago. The long odds-on favourite finished the race fourth and he finished the race lame. 'Helene Vitality also started favourite in 2001 and the rain came to thwart him. He finished third but it wasn't his kind of going at all,' Hayes recalled. 'He and Resfa were legitimate favourites but it meant nothing. Fate denied them their real chance and there is nothing anyone could do.'
This year, Hayes is numerically superior - but that has happened before without the right result. In the 2000 Derby, he sent out five runners and picked up only the change for minor money. A year later, four were not enough to get him more than the minors.
Hayes has enjoyed a perfect passage into the main event - but trouble strikes from the clearest of skies as Resfa showed. Or from gloomy clouds, as Helene Vitality found out. And Hayes has superiority at the handicaps with Elegant Fashion - but there are no guarantees. His big, tomboy mare arguably came through the toughest lead-up race - the Hong Kong Gold Cup, in a path to the Derby that has had little testing.
Until 2001, the Gold Cup was always after the Derby. In that year, Industrial Pioneer and Helene Vitality came through the Gold Cup to fight for favouritism in the Derby before Industrial Pioneer prevailed for Brian Kan Ping-chee and Gerald Mosse.
'The Gold Cup was a good formline in 2001, then there were no horses to come from it into the Derby last year,' Hayes says. 'It is a fairly new angle on the race but the horses Elegant Fashion met in the Gold Cup, Dr More and Olympic Express, are very, very good. In other parts of the world, the horse which can mix it with the top class open company is usually hard to toss in a Derby among his own generation.' Or her own generation, as the case is today. Hayes prefers a good track. No new surprises. Hayes prefers a true tempo, but he's leaving that to the gods - there will be no unexpected heroics from Mosse as he seeks a third Derby on Elegant Fashion.
The Derby promises a stop-start contest, where an ounce of tactical wizardry may be worth a saddlebag full of form. We saw it in the Hong Kong Cup last December, when Michael Kinane's ride won a boil-over for Precision in a crazy race without leaders.
'Well, whatever the speed is, I can tell you none of my four is going out to lead,' Hayes confirmed. 'If one of them is in front, it will mean the pace is walking speed because they will have been left out there. I'm not that worried - races in Hong Kong are usually not run too slow however they look on paper.'
Hayes has yet to enjoy two Group Ones on the same card in Hong Kong - he did once perform the feat in Australia - but also has All Thrills Too as his frontliner in the Group One Centenary Sprint Cup, 1,000m.
'I think my best is a feature win and a couple of Class Ones on the same day, so it would be a first for me, but John Size has the chance to go even one better - Electronic Unicorn would have to get a bad headache to lose the Chairman's Trophy,' Hayes said.
'Rain would be a concern for All Thrills Too. He has shown before that he's not at his best on softer ground, but if he gets firm footing - and I have plenty of respect for rivals like Firebolt and Grand Delight - he should be right there at the finish.'
Graphic: DERB22GES
