Mr Brightside: From underdog to unstoppable

Looking back at the incredible rise to stardom of his stable champion Mr Brightside, there are more than a few occasions when trainer JD Hayes wondered if the horse would make it at all.

Bought from obscurity off a handy fifth placing in a 1400m maiden at Matamata in New Zealand, it is fair to say that it took a while for Mr Brightside to show his true colours.

“He didn’t exactly jump out of the blocks,” said JD.

“When he arrived, he was a bit of a bad mood on four legs. His gallops were pretty average, he took a patch or two out of a few different riders and spent more time on his back legs messing around than doing his work. He didn’t really want to play the game.”

Enter Scottish track rider Ross Wishart. Given the short straw one morning when assigned Mr Brightside for track work, Wishart managed to at least unlock a cooperative side of the young son of Bullbars.

Compliance turned into consistency, and ultimately to promise.

“His work wasn’t brilliant, but he showed he could gallop. We found what looked like a weak maiden at Bendigo to kick him off in and we thought ‘just go there and win. He didn’t,” said JD.

Beaten as favourite at his debut for Lindsay Park, Hayes, JD’s brother Ben wondered if Mr Brightside would ultimately turn out to be Mr Frustrating.

They need not have worried. Mr Brightside atoned for his Bendigo defeat with a five-length win at Geelong, then five more wins on end as he charged through the classes from maiden to Listed Seymour Cup (1600m) winner in just three months during a memorable romp in the spring of 2021.

“After Seymour, he was beaten a long neck in the Group 1 Cantala (Stakes, now VRC Champions Mile). I remember standing in the mounting yard on my own in that COVID year, I just burst into tears. I was so proud, and I kept thinking, what do we have here? How good is this horse?” said Ben.

Lindsay Park and the Hayes family are part of the fabric of Australian racing; a true dynasty that began in Adelaide in 1947 when Colin Hayes took out his trainer’s licence. From the visionary development of the original Lindsay Park stables and stud at Angaston in South Australia’s Barossa, to the emergence of David Hayes, the youngest-ever Australian Racing Hall of Fame inductee, to the incredible rise of the modern Lindsay Park at Euroa, the Hayes family story is a spectacular tale of risk and reward.

But when David Hayes returned to Hong Kong to train in 2020 and the keys to Lindsay Park handed over to sons Ben and JD earlier than some onlookers would have expected (who were later joined by brother, Will), many in the racing world wondered what the future held.

“There were a lot of doubters, that’s for sure. A lot of horses left, too, owners not wanting to take the risk. I suppose they didn’t think we were up to it,” said JD.

“It was tough, but you keep moving forward and you work hard. That’s what CS had done, that’s what Dad had done. In that context, Mr B could not have come along at a better time for us. He put our names back up in lights.”

Along with the super-tough metropolitan performer Gentleman Roy, Mr Brightside had the Hayes boys in the winner’s circle and on the racing pages every other week. It gave the young trainers a chance to sell themselves, to prove that they knew what they were doing, that they had listened and learned to those that came before them. Slowly, momentum started to build.

“He (Mr Brightside) has filled the farm back up. He turned heads around, horses came back, owners returned, they had faith in us,” said JD.

But Mr Brightside’s impact on Lindsay Park and the latest generation of the Hayes family isn’t confined to a one-preparation winning streak.

This is a horse that has continued to stand up at the elite level over four seasons, a modern-day warrior, the sort of horse that racing fans fall in love with.

“He’s a genuine freak,” said JD.

“He’s got two things that so many good horses don’t have – longevity and consistency. He’s seen a lot of very good horses come and go; he’s seen them all off. People always compare him to Better Loosen Up. Blu was a brilliant horse but he was only at his peak for two seasons. This horse (Mr Brightside) is coming into his fourth and hopefully is as good as ever.”

Considering his improbable rise to stardom, Mr Brightside has been a far greater gift to the Hayes brothers than just a catalyst for business.

“He’s made my brothers and I better trainers, one hundred percent he has,” said JD.

“We’re so lucky to have Dad to call on and we do ask him questions and get advice, but he lets us find our own way too. A horse like Mr Brightside teaches you to look for those little signs of ability – once you find that, you don’t know what you can unlock in a horse.

“If a horse is not showing much or if we feel like it’s holding back a little, we do think of horses like Brightside and try things that we tried with him. It doesn’t always work and not many horses will do what he has, but it’s about getting the best out of every horse and giving them their chance to realise their potential.”

This year Mr Brightside returns as a battle-hardened seven-year-old for an important campaign that will take him overseas for the first time, with the Hong Kong Champions Mile in late April his target following a remarkable fourth appearance in the All-Star Mile at Flemington on Super Saturday.

“That’s the plan, all things going well. He’ll have an extra couple of weeks break after Hong Kong to get ready for the spring and a fifth crack at the VRC Champions Mile. Wouldn’t that be something?”