JOHN Hayes sat in the middle of the sales ring at Goffs with his wife Una last Wednesday as the clock ticked by 11am. The pair of them may as well have been strapped into a rollercoaster. There is nothing like a bit of sales ring theatre drama, especially when you’ve skin in the game.

Hayes, who is a partner in an engineering consultancy practice, admits that breeding horses is just a hobby, something to keep him sane when he arrives home from a 12-hour day at 7pm. That in itself could be described as mild insanity by professional breeders and indeed not many hobby breeders send their mares to Frankel with no real plan on how to pay the covering fee.