Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes have trained their first winner without David Hayes
With David Hayes leaving the Lindsay Park training partnership, Tom Dabernig and Ben Hayes have been successful with their first runner.
The victory of Stormborn at Pakenham on Friday gave Dabernig and Ben Hayes the ideal start.
David Hayes left for Hong Kong last month and needed to relinquish his Australian licence before commencing training duties in Asia.
Ben Hayes said the timing was pure luck as there had been no planning as to when the new Dabernig and Hayes partnership would become official.
“That’s fantastic, we’ve got a 100 per cent strike-rate,” Hayes told racing.com.
“I would like to say we planned it, but we weren’t exactly sure when the changeover would happen, so we were a bit lucky with this one.”
Hayes said there would be little change to the routines that have been successful at Lindsay Park in their Flemington and Euroa stables.
“Dad has left it to Tom and I to do most of the work over the past eight months, so I don’t think too much will change,” Hayes said.
“Dad’s taught both Tom and I well, we know the processes and we know how to train from the farm, so I’m looking forward to the future.”
Racing Victoria has confirmed that any of the new combinations wins until season’s end will not count towards the trainers’ premierships.
The former Lindsay Park partnership leads the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace partnership by nine winners in the metropolitan trainers’ title with four meetings remaining for the season.
Dabernig and Hayes have four runners at Caulfield on Saturday across two races while Maher and Eustace will also saddle four starters in three races.
