There’s an awful lot riding on FWD Champions Day at Sha Tin for the Hayes family. David Hayes saddles the world’s best sprinter, Ka Ying Rising , in the £2.2m Group 1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize and sons Ben, Will and JD send out Mr Brightside in the £2.4m Group 1 Champions Mile. It will be a pivotal day in the 60-year history of Lindsay Park, the world-famous training and breeding operation set up in the 1960s by the legendary Colin Hayes in the small town of Angaston, 50 miles outside Adelaide. Hayes snr, who trained 5,333 winners, also enjoyed a reputation as an astute stud master. He broke the mould when he established a ‘horse paradise’ modelled on Vincent O’Brien’s Ballydoyle in the Barossa Valley wine-growing region of South Australia. He had ventured outside the state’s capital city and in the process created a training dynasty. The significance is not lost on Colin’s son David (below). “This is a unique day,” he says. “Two low-profile horses on the pedigree side, coming out of Lindsay Park, Dad’s old farm, and they’re both rated in the top ten in the world. It’s a pretty special moment. “Not many Australian horses, nor a lot of Hong Kong horses, get rated in the top ten. We have two of them and Hong Kong has three [apart from Ka Ying Rising the other Hong Kong horses are Romantic Warrior and Voyage Bubble]. “It’s an amazing achievement for Hong Kong and for us. These are great horses; any one of them would be worthy of Horse of the Year in Hong Kong in any of the past ten years.” He makes the point that Ka Ying Rising could emerge from this meeting with 12 successive wins in the book, a record-equalling eight wins in a season, four at Group 1 level, an extraordinary list of achievements. So is he feeling the pressure? “I’m feeling it a little. I’ll be glad when it’s over. It’s been a long season with him. I know now what Peter Moody [trainer of Black Caviar], Henry Cecil [Frankel] and Chris Waller [Winx] went through with their champions. “I’ve never had a horse run at $1.10 [odds of 1-10] before. In my thousands of winners and hundreds of Group 1 winners, he’s the shortest-priced horse I’ve ever had. It’s actually easier to train a 3-1 shot than one at $1.10.” Hayes feels a responsibility to the horse and his connections, Ka Ying Rising’s fans, and the punters, who see him as their banker. “My biggest fear is of something going spectacularly wrong out of the gates. If he bungled the start and got behind a bad horse . . .” Hayes doesn’t want to disappoint the public, who have hopes and expectations of greeting the next Golden Sixty or Romantic Warrior, a champion they can latch on to for many seasons. Ka Ying Rising and Zac Purton after winning the Longines Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin last December Credit: Vince Caligiuri/Getty “You know, Ka Ying Rising has hardly ever drawn the inside. It’s unbelievable, really. Usually, he has top weight and the outside barrier, yet this time he starts from stall four.” The gelding has drawn lower (closer to the inside rail) in only two of his 14 starts. Hayes confirms that he and his wife Prue are preparing to welcome back all four of their children, Ben, Will, JD and Sophie, who grew up in Hong Kong during their father’s previous training stint here (1996-2005). All four are employed operating the modern-day Lindsay Park, which is located at Euroa, Victoria, a comfortable two-hour drive from Melbourne. “They haven’t been here as a family since their schooldays, 20 years ago. Ben walked in the other night and he hadn’t been in the apartment for 25 years. It’s not the same flat but it’s the same building and it was fun watching him looking around and remembering all the things. It was all coming back to him. “The three boys and Sophie all went to the Australian International School in Kowloon Tong and later they were boarders at Melbourne Grammar back in Australia. “It’s very special to have the boys racing here on the same day as me. When I left Australia they were strappers (stable hands ) at Lindsay Park. Ben had started as co-trainer (with his cousin Tom Dabernig) but the other boys were riding trackwork,” he explains. David has not changed Ka Ying Rising’s training regime despite the approach of his most important assignment. He won a barrier trial nine days ago and all is going according to the trainer’s plan. “He’s followed that pattern ten times in a row. The barrier trial is normal for him, it’s copy and paste, it works. I don’t gallop him hard in training and in between races he will barrier trial, which is his main gallop. He hasn’t let me down yet and I wasn’t going to change things before his biggest race. “I would say he’s in as good form as he was for his last start. To equal the record for the most wins in a season will be an amazing effort if he does it. He’s done it at Group level, others have gone through the classes.” Looking to the future, Hayes and the syndicate of owners who race Ka Ying Rising are keen to aim the four-year-old at The Everest at Randwick, Sydney, on October 18. The 6f weight-for-age sprint carries prize-money of A$20 million (approx £10 million), making it the richest race in Australia. “That will be it for the season after this weekend. He’ll go to Conghua [the HKJC’s training complex in China], where he can take advantage of the lovely day paddocks. He’ll have four weeks to himself, which he’ll love, and then a three-month build-up to The Everest.” You never quite know how a family reunion will pan out. There’s usually some nerves and apprehension, no matter what the family circumstances are. The Hayes family reunion is something very different and has the makings of a special occasion that will live long in the memory. Read more on HKR Champions Day: Goliath faces giant task in keeping Japan’s challenge at bay in Sha Tin's showpiece QEII Cup Little hope for rivals planning a tactical defeat of Ka Ying Rising in Chairman's Sprint Prize Mr Brightside can burst Voyage Bubble’s sequence in Sha Tin's Champions Mile Sign up to receive On The Nose , our essential daily newsletter, from the Racing Post. Your unmissable morning feed, direct to your email inbox every morning.