As Mr Brightside fought his way past Pride Of Jenni to win the Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes, he surpassed $14 million in prize money, more than twice as much as the next highest earning member of the famous Lindsay Park operation.
The son of Bullbars sits sixth overall on the Australian earners’ list and is closing in on the fifth-placed horse, the champion mare after whom Saturday’s Group 1 feature was named. He is now second only to Verry Elleegant regarding New Zealand-bred runners on that list.
Modern prize money levels can distort historical stats, Group 1 wins less so. Mr Brightside now has seven Group 1 victories to his credit. Only 22 horses in Australian racing history have more, and only one in the history of Lindsay Park, Better Loosen Up.
There are strong parallels between Better Loosen Up and Mr Brightside in terms of the timing of their careers.
Better Loosen Up was a four-year-old when David Hayes took over from his father Colin in 1990. He had already won four Group 1 races by then but would deliver his new trainer another four Group 1 wins in his first full season, a Cox Plate, a Mackinnon Stakes, a Japan Cup and an Australian Cup.
The handover from CS to David was seamless. Colin had won 13 straight Victorian trainers’ premierships and David would win the next five, before brother Peter added a 19th straight win for the family.
Hayes family/Lindsay Park success since 1950:
The generational handover from David to his sons Ben, JD and Will was a little more complex. David’s return to Hong Kong came at a time when the megastables of Chris Waller and Ciaron Maher were in the ascendancy and, in this environment, his sons had a challenge to compete.
One of Ben and JD Hayes’ first winners in partnership was a humbly bred Bullbars gelding named Mr Brightside at Geelong in July 2021.
He won six straight races, culminating in the Seymour Cup, and the following autumn delivered them their first Group 1 success in the 2022 Doncaster Handicap. An All Star-Mile victory and second Doncaster success followed the next season.
When JD’s twin brother Will “officially” joined the partnership in 2023, Mr Brightside was there again to create history, becoming the new Lindsay Park arrangement’s first elite winner in last year’s Memsie Stakes.
A Makybe Diva Stakes win and that heart-breaking Cox Plate defeat followed last spring before CF Orr Stakes and Futurity Stakes victories in the autumn. On Saturday, he became the first horse in 67 years to win back-to-back editions of the Makybe Diva/Craiglee Stakes.
At the top level he has been the most extraordinarily consistent horses. Of 20 Group 1 starts, he has seven wins and seven placings. Only once in all those Group 1 appearances has Mr Brightside finished further back than fifth. Of his past 12 Group 1 starts, he has won six and placed second a further four times.
Those statistics put him in the absolute elite category and when you filter by his Group 1 runs up to 1600 metres, they look even more impressive. Of Mr Brightside’s 14 Group 1 starts at the mile or shorter, he has won seven races and been placed a further five times.
He now has the same number of overall racetrack wins - 17 - as Lindsay Park legends Better Loosen Up and Planet Ruler.
Much like those two champions, he is propelling a rise to fortune for the remainder of the stable soon after a generational handover.
Lindsay Park is firmly on the up at the moment, building up from 117 seasonal wins in that first season after David’s departure in 2021/22 to 155 in 2022/23 and then 199 in 2023/24.
After 44 days of the 2024/25 season, the trio are going at a winner a day, splitting the two major stables in the country Ciaron Maher (54) and Chris Waller (42) at the top of the Australian trainers’ premiership.
They have achieved this despite having nearly 100 fewer runners than Waller and 155 fewer than Maher. Their winning percentage for this season currently sits at a lofty 22.2 per cent.
The secret to this strong start has been their lesser credentialed and emerging horses, with 31 country winners. They have had winners at 17 different tracks this season, none of them outside of Victoria.
This dominate-at-home tactic is evident because just seven of their 198 runners this season, or 3.5 per cent, have been outside Victoria. Last season that statistic was 8.1 per cent, while the two seasons before that it was 5.6 per cent and 5.3 per cent.
Lindsay Park - season by season
