Colin Hayes

Hayes was elevated to Legend status in the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2018, a feat only achieved by two other horse trainers, TJ Smith and Bart Cummings.

His son David followed in his footsteps and is a horse trainer. His other son was also a trainer, but Peter Hayes, who at the time was training Fields Of Omagh, died in an airplane crash in 2001.

A sign of his success is the world record 10 individual winners in a day, a feat he achieved on 23 January 1982.

He officially began training there on 1 August 1970 and over the next 29 years created one of the most successful breeding and training establishments in the world.

Hayes's initial moderate success with Surefoot drove him to expand his operations and he set up stables called 'Surefoot Lodge' at Semaphore. He won his first Adelaide trainers' premiership in 1956 but decided he wanted to expand his operations into breeding winners as well.

Colin Sidney Hayes AM OBE (16 February 1924 – 21 May 1999) was an Australian champion trainer of thoroughbred racehorses based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Hayes was born in Semaphore, South Australia on 16 February 1924. His father died when he was 10 years old. On leaving school he gained employment with the South Australian Electricity Trust as a boilermaker, but his love of horses soon led him to purchase a steeplechaser named Surefoot for £9. As an amateur rider, Hayes rode Surefoot himself with his best result being a third in the 1948 Great Eastern Steeplechase run at Oakbank.

A syndicate of people was formed to purchase the property known as Lindsay Park, an 800-hectare property of very rich pasture land and superb paddocks. The centrepiece of the property is a magnificent 38-room mansion built in 1840 by George Fife Angas from sandstone and marble quarried on the property.