Hayes chasing sweet life
While they had a pony at home, Chris was only being led around the paddock, or up and down the avenue. While he obviously enjoyed it, there had been no real indication that he was going to become one of the country’s top pilots. Or had any inclination to be. Next week, he’d probably want to be a fireman.
Except that’s not how it materialised. Something stirred in Chris on his first visit to the famed Dingle Pony Races and it was on the trip home that he enlightened his father as to his ambition. It hasn’t wavered since.
Apart from having to persuade his mother that it was a fine way for her son to make a living, there haven’t been many hitches and progress has been constant.
The one setback was losing the job as Lady O’Reilly’s retained rider two years ago. But even that morphed into a positive, with new opportunities emerging that have brought the Limerick native to where he will be this evening, riding the highly-fancied Sugar Boy in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby.
Hayes made his debut on the pony racing circuit as a nine-year-old at the local Shanagolden meeting, although he was 13 before he became a regular. By then, PJ had been bitten by the bug as well and Chris is thankful for the grounding it gave him.
“It’s very competitive from an experience point of view but there’s a lot involved. It’s a pastime but a lot of people take it serious. It’s expensive enough. I was lucky enough we had a couple of good ponies and it kind of paid for itself to a certain degree.
“I was coming home from school and going straight out to the ponies. School bag fired into the corner and down. You’d stay there all night, even in winter.”
With his brothers riding as well, it was a family affair. Mind you, the entire clan wasn’t enamoured. Particularly when the topic of Chris attending the RACE academy in Kildare town was raised.
So father and son plotted to tell her that it would just be a sabbatical from school and he’d go back after what they termed “a transition year”. They still joke about that now.
That was the making of him. He learned plenty but there was some luck too in that he secured a placement with Kevin Prendergast. With a few weeks remaining in the 10-month course, the Curragh-based trainer offered to take him on as an apprentice.
“When I went into RACE, everybody wanted to go to Kevin Prendergast. I was lucky enough to get the placement there and just to walk in, see the jockeys that were there. And for him to say ‘I’m going to sign you on’ was a dream come true. Especially when you look at the riders that were already in there.
“There was Michael Hussey, Christopher Geoghegan, Padraig Beggy, Brian Hughes, Damian Murphy, and Declan McDonagh. So that was six of the top 20 riders in the one yard. You’d want to be going around with your eyes closed not to learn something.
“And the boss himself, on top of what you learned from other people, added to that. It was grounding you were going to get nowhere else.”
Prendergast has been a monumental influence ever since. Hayes signed on in June 2004 and had eight winners on the board by the end of the season. Unless you’re Joseph O’Brien and have the backing of the most powerful force in racing, that doesn’t really happen.
The second of those winners came in a €100,000 premier handicap at the Galway festival. Not for the last time, “the boss” got him the ride, on Ger Lyons’ Amourallis. The 10lb claimer got Christine Kiernan’s filly up by half a length on just the 10th public steering job of his life.
The “rollercoaster” continued as he was champion apprentice for the next three years and getting the Lady O’Reilly gig in 2007 confirmed his standing.
All the while, Prendergast “never looked beyond me”. Though still a claimer, he was getting the leg up in the biggest races. He was claiming 3lbs when riding Dimenticata in the 1000 Guineas six years ago. They were just touched off by the remarkable filly, Finsceal Beo but just getting these opportunities was incredible.
That was the closest he has come to bagging a Classic but this is his best chance since. And he thinks of his father, his agent (Dave Keena) and Prendergast. The latter duo persuaded him to remain in Ireland when Lady O’Reilly didn’t renew his contract in 2011.
He spent a few days with John Quinn in England but Prendergast said he’d do what he could for him. He rode for Andy Oliver and Paul Deegan and those partnerships have yielded rich dividends, as has the continuing link with Prendergast.
But most significantly, in the context of flat racing’s blue riband, it was a link-up with Prendergast’s nephew that might just yield the weightiest dividend.
“If it wasn’t for the boss I probably wouldn’t have started riding for Patrick. Patrick worked a few horses with us a couple of years ago and the boss told me to let him ride a few. It took off from there.
“The season I wasn’t retained by Lady O’Reilly, Patrick was one of the first people to give me a call and ask me to go in and ride out a couple for him.”
So now, he rides the Patrick Prendergast-trained Sugar Boy in a race that has captured his imagination ever since Johnny Murtagh and Alamshar out-duelled Christophe Soumillon and Dalakhani after battling all the way up the straight in one of the great renewals in 2003.
“I was building myself up the whole time thinking I had chances and when an owner gives you a chance, you have to think that. But in hindsight, they probably weren’t good enough.
“But this time, even the press thinks they’re good enough as I’ve never gotten so many phone calls so I’m not fooling myself.”
The 25-year-old’s one doubt surrounded Sugar Boy’s ability to handle good ground but those were dispelled at the Curragh on Monday morning.
“He seemed in good form. He travelled away nicely and was running away with me in the straight. I had a bit of bother pulling him up. That’s the best ground I’ve ever rode him on and he strode out fine. Before, we never thought he wanted an ease as he’s such a light horse on his feet. If that is the case we have to have a proper live chance.”
“The more rain the better for him. We’ll pray for rain as he has form on it while the rest don’t.
“He’s probably the freshest horse going into the race as the others have been to Epsom and elsewhere. He’s been a great horse for me.”
And could get even better.
