Loft likely to be Lindsay Park’s main Melbourne Cup hope

Some things rarely change, like the Hayes name and imports in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.

With Lindsay Park now under the care of Ben and J D Hayes, they too are likely to be relying on imports to be their main hopes in this year’s Cups.

The boys’ grandfather Colin won the Melbourne Cup with imports Beldale Ball and At Talaq while their father David also won the Caulfield Cup with an import, Tawqeet.

Entries for the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, along with the Cox Plate, close on Tuesday and Ben Hayes said numbers in those races are likely to slim from the stable.

He said their main local hope would be Mr Brightside, with the 2022 Cox Plate, hopefully his target.

Makram, an import who won at his second Australian start at Flemington on Anzac Day, is likely to be Lindsay Park’s main 2022 Caulfield Cup hope with German import Loft in the 2022 Melbourne Cup.

Loft is yet to make his way to Australia after loyal client, Edmund Lee, who raced Redkirk Warrior and Harlem, purchased the stayer in conjunction with last year’s Melbourne Cup winning owner Ozzie Kheir.

Hayes described Loft, a dual Group 2 winner, once in Germany and once in the US, as an exciting horse with some good form abroad.

At his most recent outing, Loft took out the Belmont Gold Cup over 3219m at Belmont Park in the US.

“He’s a very exciting horse and it looks like he might get in on the minimum, when I say the minimum, around 54.5kg,” Hayes said.

“He’s going to have another run over there and he might get penalised if he wins, but if he doesn’t, he’ll get a nice weight for the Cup.”

Hayes is not expecting to see Loft until he arrives among a shipment of horses for the Spring Carnival.

“It will depend on whether they want to run him in the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup or just the Melbourne Cup, so that will determine when he comes out,” Hayes said.

“Ozzie contacted Edmund and bought a share and it’s fantastic to have Ozzie in the stable.

“He’s a good judge and has bought quite a few nice horses.”

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