Eventually, David Hayes’ suit finally bares all, a window into what it’s like to train the world’s best sprinter.
It’s easy to wonder why he even wore it in the first place, a weird colour resembling a meeting point between brown and beige, the type you might only wear once at a fancy dress party which calls for a Safari costume, and then stuff it in the back of the cupboard never to be seen again.
The problem for Hayes is he wore it when Ka Ying Rising started this wondrous winning streak, and he dare not change it now. Even on days like this, where the temperature at Sha Tin nudges into the 30s, the humidity almost touches 90 per cent, and it’s rained so much the Hong Kong Jockey Club probably has a team dedicated to around-the-clock monitoring of the local typhoon warnings.
Finally, Hayes’ suit can’t take it anymore. The sweat seeps into visible marks across his back, minutes after the world’s best sprinter has toyed with his rivals. The trainer is working harder than his horse.
“I’d rather be in the navy blue,” Hayes laughs of his suit preference.
“The hat is getting tired, the shoes are getting worn out. But I just happened to be wearing this suit (when Ka Ying Rising started winning), and being a bit superstitious, I thought I won’t change.
“The owner certainly doesn’t want me to change, so I do it more for my owner than myself.”
It doesn’t matter where you turn on a raceday in Hong Kong, superstitions are everywhere.
On the opening day of the 2025-26 season, punters line up for minutes to hit a lucky gong to bring them good fortune for the campaign ahead. Well wishers flock to trainers, jockeys, owners with “good luck for the season” greetings. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.
The Jockey Club’s newest trainer, South African Brett Crawford, has his first runner for the season, and despite spending an entire career to get here in this privileged racing bubble, Hong Kong’s fickle owners will often judge him on how his horses fare in the first few weeks, maybe months.
Speedy Smartie starts favourite, has a less-than-ideal run and is grabbed in the shadows of the post to finish second. It’s a promising start, but the owners are already wondering if Crawford is lucky or not. He might be sweating a bit longer to find out.
In a twice-a-week racing mecca like this, where trainers have their horse capacity capped at 70, and jockeys fight for Zac Purton’s scraps, every race means something. For those new to Hong Kong, the significance is amplified.
Ka Ying Rising is not new to Hong Kong, and he’s about the only horse where luck doesn’t matter. As he prances around the parade ring enveloped by thousands of fans, he stands out not just for the tote boards which barely offer money back such is the inevitability of his 13th straight win, but the little logo on the side of the banana yellow earmuffs the Jockey Club use for their horses. It’s the insignia of The Everest, the A$20 million sprint at Royal Randwick which will be his greatest test next month.
By the time Purton canters him around to the gates, the punters who want to back him in Hong Kong’s massive tote pools are almost doing it for a souvenir ticket, much like Winx when she was in her pomp. His dividend reads 1.0.
The Jockey Club need to pump their own money into the pool just so punters can get a return. They’re eventually paid out at 1.05.
“This is why we cannot serve champagne,” jokes Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges after the last race in one of his regular sermons, where he immediately updates the press on anything from the day’s turnover figures to Korean track conditions and climate change.
“But you have to look at it as advertising. If you have the opportunity to showcase, at the first race meeting (of the season) the best sprinter in the world … it’s such an attraction for Hong Kong. If it costs us a minimum guarantee (so be it).
“There’s a song from Gloria Gaynor I Will Survive…”
But can any Australian sprinter survive the other Hong Kong typhoon headed their way?
No one seriously expected Ka Ying Rising to be beaten in the Chief Executive’s Cup, a field filled with rivals so inferior not even a massive weight discrepancy could hinder the champion. But it was the manner of the win which was so ominous. Always brilliant, he’s now a bully.
As Hayes’ face glistened, having failed to fight off the perspiration, and others nearby retreat to stand in front of external cooling machines, he glows about Ka Ying Rising’s condition. He’s 35 pounds heavier than last season. Muscle, not fat. That muscle could have powered him to a win of maybe five lengths, perhaps six if Purton really wanted. Not the most avid fan of the Jockey Club’s new whip restrictions rushed in in time for the new season, Purton barely even shows Ka Ying Rising the persuader, let alone uses it. Conservatively, he’s started easing the horse down at the 200-metre mark. He still won by two-and-three-quarters of a length from four-time Group 1 winner Lucky Sweynesse.
Matter of factly, Hayes says Purton “can be negative” sometimes. But even the jockey can’t find a negative with this performance from a horse which is transcending the sport.
Purton can say and demand whatever he wants in Hong Kong such is his dominance and legacy, and that includes his critique of perhaps the best horse of a generation. One of his concerns about Ka Ying Rising has been his reluctance to change legs in the run, which horses use to tap into a new energy reserve when the tank is low. Joao Moreira was a master of encouraging horses to do it. Ka Ying Rising finally does it on Sunday.
As he makes the short stroll from the jockeys’ room to the front gate of his on-course residence after a five-timer to start the season, Purton stops short of any negatives this time, which is scary for those trying to beat him in Australia.
So, could any horse possibly beat him in The Everest?
“Well, you never want to be too confident travelling overseas,” Purton says. “I respect the sprinters in Australia and I respect the horses he’s going to have to race against.
“Even (on Saturday), there were some impressive performances down there. He’s going to need to turn up at his best to be competitive.”
Bookmakers have such a liability with Ka Ying Rising now he’s being shopped as short as $1.70 for The Everest. It’s still six weeks until the race.
The mark of champions in any sport is overcoming all conditions, and the facts about Ka Ying Rising are inescapable: he’s only ever raced at Sha Tin, over 1200 metres in every start bar one, and on tracks which are always rated in the good range thanks to the Jockey Club’s other-worldly drainage system.
Now, he will have to conquer new challenges in a new land, not least of all the arduous travel and the raceday environment.
It might not seem like a big deal, but at Royal Randwick punters can mill near the tie-up stalls for as long as they want. Ka Ying Rising will have hundreds at any one time trying to catch a glimpse of potentially the world’s best thoroughbred. How will it affect his occasionally alpha male persona?
At Sha Tin, he walks from Hayes’ nearby stables to the race stabling no more than 40 minutes before his contest. Once there, there are no fans nearby, no television cameras, no stress. It’s been the same for years.
In its short history, The Everest has never had a horse who looked so dominant on paper. It’s always been a wide betting affair, which makes it intriguing for punters, and also slotholders who scramble to secure the best horses. This year will be different.
Asked if the current price will be what he starts on the day of The Everest, Hayes says: “It will all depend how impressive he is in his trial. It’s probably the right price, isn’t it?
“All the Australian horses step out now. Private Harry will step out, Briasa, (Lady) Shenandoah was outstanding (second in the Concorde Stakes) … if they do it again he might ease a bit in the market.”
What then?
“If he does, back him,” Hayes smiles.
Hayes never won The Everest before his second coming in Hong Kong, although few have a harder luck story.
In the race’s first edition in 2017, he had the favourite Vega Magic, whose jockey Craig Williams was seemingly caught in 10 different minds after the start. He tried to ease back to find cover when wide early, never really found it, and then flew late to be beaten by all-the-way leader Redzel.
Even all these years later, Hayes can’t forget. He says it’s now “unfinished business”.
“He was favourite and should have been,” Hayes says of Vega Magic. “It wasn’t one of Craig’s best.”
It’s enough to still wake a man at night with cold sweats. Maybe this time the lucky suit will work. ∎
