By David Nagel
HALL of Fame trainer David Hayes believes Pilote D’essai can emulate the Group 1 deeds of his stablemate Spillway after a breathtaking victory in the $200,000 Superior Food Services Pakenham Cup (2500m) at Racing.com Park.
Hayes, who trained Spillway to autumn glory in last year’s Australian Cup, has found the key to Pilote D’essai, a money-muncher for punters in August who has now won the Ballarat and Pakenham cups in the last fortnight.
“He’ll be a very reliable horse over 2000 metres and beyond,” Hayes said after Saturday’s win.
“Probably in the spring we were running him a bit short, as it’s turned out, but hindsight’s a wonderful thing. But we can give him a month on the water walker now, put him in the paddock and set him for a nice race in the autumn, either the Australian Cup or the Peter Young. I really do feel he’s in the class of Spillway and he’ll deliver on it.”
Jockey Regan Bayliss rode a heady race on the five-year-old gelding, hunting forward to lead past the post the first time before settling back to as far back as fourth before the field turned for home.
Bayliss regained the lead from challengers Puccini, Little White Cloud and Lord Van Percy in the straight and galloped away for a soft two-and-a-half length victory.
Bayliss was pumped after the race, querying the judgement of many experts who refused to buy in to his dominant Ballarat Cup form.
“An awesome win, a lot of people wrote this horse off,” Bayliss said.
“I’ve got to be honest, the stable definitely still had faith in him and I couldn’t believe they wrote him off. He’s a very under-rated horse, he’s been labelled a bit of a cat in his past runs, but I can’t see why. He’s had no luck in any of his runs and now that he’s got to his right distance he’s proved a lot of people wrong today.”
Hayes was the dominant trainer at Pakenham’s first metropolitan grade meeting, training four winners in succession with Snitzson $7.00, Mihany $2.50, Pilote D’essai $5.00 and Grande Rosso $11.00 giving him a stunning quartet of victories.
Hayes, who has purchased two trainer allotments at Racing.com Park, will set up a satellite training facility at the course, training up to 60 horses there.
Hayes, who trains in partnership with son Ben and nephew Tom Dabernig, will commence construction at Tynong in about 18 months’ time.
The other star on the day was jockey Craig Williams, who rode a double for Hayes on his way to four winners for the day.
Williams was full of praise for the Pakenham Racing Club as he returned to scale aboard Gallic Chieftain after the last.
“It’s been a great day on the track for me, but let’s put things into perspective, it’s been a great initiative,” Williams said of the PRC’s move from Racecourse Road to Tynong.
“The Pakenham Racing Club, let’s go back and talk about how the last track was, it was very tight, it was on-pace, there were a lot of unlucky stories. But this, if you want to build a new track this is how you do it.”
Williams said the vision of the PRC was most impressive.
“They had the foresight and they put their money up,” Williams said.
“They’re obviously very good at investing because they had good land before, and Racing Victoria and the government have come out to invest in the track and the facilities. And have a look at the crowd. It’s been a great day for me but it’s really enjoyable to be running on a lovely track and getting good results in front of a great crowd.”
Williams booted home Maternal for John O’Shea in race four, rode a double for Hayes aboard Snitzson and Grande Rosso, before finishing off the day with a win for Darren Weir.
Pakenham’s next meeting is the Cardinia Shire Kids Night Out, to be run under lights on Thursday 19 January, 2017.
