Haydon racing- Have read and follow these guys!

Gday everyone, I’m sure everybody remembers Tony Haydon, yep Black Caviars best mate, he travelled her, cared for her and was a big part of the team.

Well Tony and his wife Marni are now on the Sunshine coast and looking to build the team. They are great people, knockabouts like most of us!! I had an interview with Tony and here is what I’ve typed up for everyone to have read, I’m sure it will interest a lot of people, so pass it onto mates.

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I was apprentice to Bill Mitchell at Eagle Farm and I was fortunate enough to ride Group 1 winner Special Dane when he won his maiden at Toowoomba by almost 10 length.

Probably my best race riding effort was when I rode 4 winners in a day a horse called Neartist at Doomben for John Hawkes then went to Toowoomba that night and rode a treble it was when they had infamous jockey strike, the apprentices had to ride and I had a broken wrist at the time.

Bill’s Eagle Farm stables were run by his foreman Peter Moody and that’s where our af?liation began. It was here I was lucky enough to have my association with General Nediym who I would have to say is one of my all time favourites he was a very special horse and I thought he would be the fastest horse I would ever handle, I got to travel with him on his interstate trips to Sydney and Melbourne he was a brilliant horse. Peter and Sarah Moody have without doubt been the best people and greatest in?uences to me in racing they are like family to me their work ethic is second to none and no stone was left unturned. When Peter was granted his trainers license I stayed on with him, we worked bloody hard but the results speak for themselves, I couldn’t have asked for a better foundation in racing, I look at where we started and to what it became and that gives me the greatest satisfaction it was never about 1 or 2 horses it was about all the horses they are all individuals and when you are working with them every day and seeing them battle problems it’s about the small victories with each horse, Peter and Sarah deserved all their success they worked so hard for it.

Chiropractor Michael Bryant has also been a big in?uence to me we have known one another since the Eagle Farm days to me he is the best there is what he sees on a horse and what I have learnt from him is invaluable.

I went away for a brief period but Pete gave me a call up after Ama?i had won the VRC Derby in 2001 and asked if I would come back and run the satellite stable he had at Caul?eld which I did. We had a small stable off course but he was eventually granted on course stables, we had horses the likes of Marbine, Karamazou, Ain’t Here, Brief Embrace etc. The stable just started going from strength to strength Peter wasn’t afraid to travel his horses which at the time some of the city trainers where not venturing far but that’s all changed now it’s so competitive.

It was an incredible 13 years in Melbourne horses like Typhoon Tracy, Reward For Effort, Anacheeva, Avenue, Manighar, Dissident, Headway, Wanted etc. and then of course there was Black Caviar.

The Black Caviar era well it’s hard to put into words how it affected all of us it was probably the most stressful time of our lives and one of the greatest times of our lives, she was a Champion in every sense of the word she was faster than anything I’ve ever seen and as tough after what she went through before that run in England and to still win and then she just reminded everyone how great she was in that record breaking win in the Black Caviar Lightning. ! To travel to England with her was an absolute privilege. It was a great learning curve seeing how they train at Newmarket and how the town revolves around the horses, and we were lucky enough to see the late Sir Henry Cecil and Frankel it was all pretty special for a kid from Kingaroy.

I left Caul?eld in late 2013 I needed a break and thought I would try something different from racing so I started up a little courier business in Townsville but within a couple of months I found myself driving across town to Cluden Park watching track work not realising how much and how soon I would miss it. It was in Townsville I met a client who had had some good horses with Peter over the years and he said if you ever go out training let me know and we can go to the QTIS sale. I didn’t take much prompting so in March 2015 I ?ew to the Gold Coast and purchased 4 yearlings 3 for Allan and 1 for another good group of clients and all horses 4 are winners and include Seductive Dream and Northern Divine . We were still running the courier business and training but decided that I needed to focus purely on the training so we made the move to the Sunshine Coast we travelled down with the young horses and some of the tried horses we had been given in Townsville to train while others stayed up there but of the older tried horses we had the few were at the twilight of their racing careers and just were not up to the grade in the South East. So we are trying to build our team down here. We have been doing a few Pre Training and Ready To Runs which we really enjoy but would also love to build our own horse numbers up, we purchased some nice good value horses at the QTIS sale this year to help add to our numbers so hopefully we can have the same strike rate with them as we did from our ?rst sale and we are still trying to get some owners on board for them.

We are located off course it’s a nice quiet location and the horses seem to love it. Corbould Park is a really good training centre and our horses settled in straight away.

Great people and I wish them the very best, you will here more of Tony and his wife Marni on this website and I hope people follow them on social media. Always horse available or they’ll find you one!

Social media links below, along with the website link and a couple of articles I found that included Tony in them