Power play from Park
Stable responds to Melbourne rivals with hot winning run
IT WAS only three weeks ago the Melbourne trainers’ premiership looked set for a shakeup with the new kids on the block Ciaron Maher and David Eustace having surged to the lead in their bid to claim their first title.
Lindsay Park though have answered their challenge with eight city winners from the past three metropolitan meetings consisting of two trebles and a double. They now lead by eight winners with 57 wins compared with Maher and Eustace’s 49 winners.
Today at Flemington they have several good chances among six runners and they are headed by the resurgent So Si Bon in the Apache Cat (1600m), who is aiming for an unprecedented hat-trick of triumphs.
“He’s in career-best form. We’ll back him up and then bring him back in the Aurie’s
Star, which he won last year and then set him for the Toorak Handicap. It’s never easy to win a Group 1 race but it’s one of the easier ones,” David Hayes said.
It’s not only in the city that Lindsay Park has had a great run as they have also won another seven races in the country in the past fortnight.
They have also bridged the gap in the Victorian trainers’ premiership to five taking their tally to 179, trailing Maher and
Eustace on 184 winners. Hayes said they were now in a good position to win the city premiership with nine weeks left in the season.
“We’ve got the right horses in the right races and I think that will keep going and we’ve got nice chances to come in the next few weeks,” he said. “They now need to train eight winners to get in front of us. If we train two then they’ve got to train 10 and so on. It’s going to be pretty hard to catch us.”
Hayes, who will return to Hong Kong to train for its next season, felt it was important for the stable’s other trainers — his nephew Tom Dabernig and son Ben Hayes — that they could win a premiership.
“It would be great for Ben and Tom who will take over in their own right to get a premiership. We won last year but that was a bit by default due to the Darren Weir situation. I’ll also enjoy winning a premiership before I leave.”