‘Winning is all that matters’ – Heys’ plan for Spieth redemption at Flemington

With a hint of irony and perhaps a sense of destiny, Bryce Heys will confront a full-circle moment with the best horse in his stable when she contests the Champions Sprint at Flemington.

Nearly a decade has passed, but Heys still carries the sting of Spieth’s near miss like a wound that never quite healed. Mention the 2016 Darley Classic, and the pain resurfaces.

“You never get over it,” Heys says. “At the time, I made a goose of myself with how upset I got – but that’s because of what it meant.”

Back then, Heys was barely two years into his training career. Spieth, a chestnut flyer with a blistering turn of foot, was soon identified as a launching pad for a stable, small in numbers but with ambitions as big as any in Sydney.

And he nearly did it.

In the then-Darley Classic, Spieth lunged late but fell agonisingly short of winner Malaguerra- a nose the difference between winning and losing.

It came down to bad luck in running and a split-second hesitation before the race was gone.

It wasn’t just a lost race. For Heys, it was a missed chance that could have changed everything.

“For a stable like mine, you only get a few opportunities to get there and have a crack with a decent horse,” he said.

Spieth never quite got his moment. He was retired to stud, leaving Heys to find that next good horse.

Now, nine years later, there is a twist in the Spieth story that will unfold on the same stage that left Heys a shattered trainer.

Fittingly, his Champions Sprint outsider, Flying For Fun, is a daughter of Spieth, whose stallion career at Aquis was short-lived following his death in 2022.

Out of a Sebring mare named Vol Prive, Flying For Fun exists because of a plan Heys hatched long ago. He had deliberately sourced Vol Prive with one idea in mind: that one day, she’d be mated with Spieth.

“It’s funny how it works out,” Heys says. “I bought both Spieth and Vol Prive off Trelawney Stud.

“I bought Vol Prive with the view that if she did something she would be ideal to send to Spieth.

“She showed a lot of ability on the track but was terribly unsound – so here we are.”

But for Heys, Flying For Fun is more than a thread back to the race that, for better or worse, still defines how his stable is remembered.

She is also a promising sprinter in her own right – one who gives trainers such as Heys a glimmer of hope that they can punch above their weight when it matters most.

There has been no greater example during Melbourne Cup week than small-time Ballarat trainer Thomas Carberry winning the VRC Oaks with Strictly Business, an unfashionable filly on a trajectory like few others we have seen before her.

Racing’s folklore depends on people like Carberry. But those stories are getting harder to write and Heys says it would be a travesty if they are lost forever.

“I just hope there’s room in the industry for small and medium operators,” he says. That’s what the game’s built on.”

It’s a perspective that is portrayed without malice towards the pointy end of the thoroughbred world.

Heys doesn’t begrudge the success and scale of Australia’s biggest stables and he is not complaining about their impact.

“In fact, I respect them more than anything, but racing is so great because every man is equal on a racecourse,” he says. “We love the stories that come with everyday people.

“But the industry has evolved so much since before I started training (in 2014). Everyone has gotten a bit better from how they handle the yearling sales, to the training part, to preparing the horses to go to the races.

“As a stable, we love what we do but it can be hard to stay relevant with small numbers. There would be a plethora of trainers in the same spot as me who would always like a few more horses but results speak for themselves.

“The cold, hard facts in these situations, winning is all that matters. That’s what people remember.”

Flying For Fun will be backing up after a close second in a Group 3 sprint on Victoria Derby day.

Tentyris, a clear-cut Champions Sprint favourite, is also on a quick turnaround from winning the Coolmore Stud Stakes on the same day in a victory that made the Godolphin colt one of Australia’s most valuable racehorses.

There was always an intention from global powerhouse Godolphin for Tentyris to run twice during Cup week and the comparatively smaller operations of Heys had the same objective for Flying For Fun.

“It’s not an afterthought,” Heys said. “It’s a big ask but definitely not an afterthought.

“I’m sure that some may be surprised that she’s there, but it’s sort of something that was mapped out months ago.

“It definitely will not be easy to win … but we didn’t want to watch the race on Saturday and not see where we sat in the pecking order because next year we think that maybe she can win a nice race.”