One breeder’s dream fulfilled

Press, 2 December 1976, Page 26

One breeder’s dream fulfilled

By

J. J. BOYLE,

racing editor

A friendly, studious South Australian made his first buying visit to the Trantham sales almost 18 years ago holding to one. quiet, firm ambition — to breed anti train highclass racehorses. Dreaming is one thing, fulfi!ment another. Colin Hayes, that personable young newcomer to the ranks of Australian visitors to the 1959 sales, has brilliantly arranged a marriage of those twin ambitions. He has an international reputation as a trainer, and also as managing director of the famous Lindsay Park Stud in the picturesque wine-produc-ing Barossa Valley, some 50 miles from Adelaide. "The future belongs to those who plan for it,” is the motto of the directors of Lindsay Park, and under the guidance of Colin Hayes some inspired planning backed by determination and much hard work has given South Australia the most success f u I thoroughbred breeding and training complex in the Southern Hemisphere and perhaps the finest of its type in the world.

It was my good fortune while in Australia for the Melbourne Cup carnival to be included in a party of New Zealand and Australian racing writers flown from Melbourn- to inspect this glittering shop window of the South Australian thoroughbred industry.

As guests of Coles Bloodstock Agency, the South Australian Division of the Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association of Australia. and Ansett-A.N.A. we were taken to South Australia eight days after Colin Haves won the Caulfield Cup with How Now, one of his inspired b a r g a i n-basement purchases out of the Trentham sale ring; and six days before Unaware, a home-bred Lindsay Park product, won the Victoria Derby.

Those two great milestones on the high road to Lindsay Park's fame were both reached as a consequence of studious, imaginative purchasing policies which reflect marked respect for the New Zea-land-bred product. For while Unaware goes into the records as a South Australian-bred, and a son of Lindsay Park’s famous young Americanbred, French-raced stallion. Without Fear, he has inherited some of his desirable racing influences from Clip joint, which was

bred in New Zealand and was one of the best staying mares of her time in this country. A Derby winner from the first crop of Without Fear has been a brilliant follow-up to a season of records by two-year-old sons and daughters of the son of Baldric in 1975-76. Colin Hayes selected Without Fear for Lindsay Park after he saw the colt race in France. World record The inspiration of such a choice. Without Fear ended last season with one world record and six Australian records. The world record, 30 individual winners by a first season-sire, bettered one that had stood since 1916. Those talented youngsters carried off 49 races and $267,961 in stakes. There were also three national records for a sire of two-year-olds and three more for a first-season sire. Besides his qualities as a young sire of superior racing performance Without Fear has splendid temperament and great presence. On our visit to Lindsay Park Mr Hayes displayed

a nice sense of the theatrical by holding back Without Fear until last in the parade of the stud stallions. Without Fear certainly graces one of South Australia’s most. famous and most picturesque properties. He stands like a statue for photographers and in his walk and gen-

eral demeanour he has the grace and controlled power usually to be found in a gifted athlete. Without Fear’s sire Baldric 11, was one of 119 winners sired by the durable and versatile Round Table, son of Princequillo, and showed his class by carrying off the English Two Thousand Guineas and the Champion Stakes for Mrs Howell E. Jackson, of the famous Bull Run Stud in the United States. Without Fear is bred on the same desirable Princequillo — Nasrullah cross as the great Mill Reef and other top-class performers. Without Fear’s dam, Never Too Late, struck some hammer blows for the racing qualities of the American-bred in France and England. She became the champion two-year-old filly in France and was sent to England as a three-year-old to win the Oaks and the One Thousand Guineas. Never Too Late was by Never Say Die from Gloria Nicky, a stakes winner and a half-sister to Libra, dam of the Irish Derby winners, Ribocco and Ribero. Lindsay Park’s other resident stallions are Com-

moner, the first son of the champion Buckpasser to come to the Southern Hemisphere; Red God, a winning son of the great Star Kingdom; Estimanet, by Sovereign’s Edition’s sire Sovereign Path; and Boone’s Cabin, son of the famous Forli.

This spring Lindsay Park’s population also included 250 brood mares, up to 200 foals, 120 racehorses, 100 yearlings, Welsh ponies, a herd of deer, descendants of animals brought from Scotland 80 years ago.

From the 130-year-old mansion, built mostly of stone quarried on the property, Colin Hayes with the enthusiastic and skilful assistance of his wife, Betty, presides with enthusiasm and dedication over an operation that costs $450,000 a year. Staff of 80

There are 80 on the payroll — a resident veterinarian, farriers, painters, mechancis, gardeners, a saddler and apprentice, two nutritionists who make the mares and foals their special care, stud grooms, apprentices, and riders. And a key figure in the grand-scale operation is Colin Hayes’s secretary and long-time friend, Harry Line, a student of pedigree and performance, a man who contributes much towards the smooth running of the complex organisation.

A visit to Lindsay Park is on the programme for the Queen while she is in South Australia next March. A few weeks earlier hundreds of buyers will be displaying acts of faith in the potential of the South Australian thoroughbred by attending the South Australian yearling sales. Approximately 536 yearlings will be offered and the catalogue will contain the largest single entry of yearlings by Without Fear ever to be catalogued for an Australian sale. Coles Bloodstock Agency will celebrate more than half a century of activity in the thoroughbred industry in South Australia by opening a new selling complex at Wayville Showgrounds on the "opening day of the sale, on February 14.

Such a step backing a catalogue of obvious quality should help justify the confidence of the auctioneers and of the South Australian Division of the Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association of Australia, headed by its energetic president, Dr F. S. H. Doman, of the southern state’s ability to consolidate its position as a leader in the field of thoroughbred breeding.