Vale Phil Bayly

New Zealand has lost one of its most successful breeders and owners with the recent passing of Phil Bayly.

He was 92.

His familiar red and black stripe silks were carried to Group One successes on both sides of the Tasman by such outstanding gallopers as (My) Blue Denim, Eagle Eye, Harris Tweed and the ill-fated Lion Tamer.

A sheep and cattle farmer at Kai Iwi, near Wanganui, for 40 years before his move north to Cambridge and then Tauranga, he hailed from a racing family and his uncle Horace owned the 1937 Auckland Cup winner The Buzzer.

Bayly himself won the Ellerslie feature in 1980 with the Dave O’Sullivan-trained Blue Denim, who very nearly realised the Melbourne Cup dream later that year.

Racing in Australia as My Blue Denim, she finished runner-up to Beldale Ball at Flemington after suffering interference in the middle stages of the race and was then blocked for room in the straight.

She also won the Gr.1 Tancred Stakes and the Gr.1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes in Sydney.

Cambridge trainer Murray Baker enjoyed outstanding success with Bayly with the likes of Eagle Eye, Harris Tweed and Lion Tamer.

“I can’t recall a small breeder winning so many Group Ones in Australia, he had a great eye for it,” Baker said. “He was a good bloke and he had some great horses.”

Eagle Eye won the Gr.1 Bayer Classic at home and he was the dual Group One winner of the Ranvet Stakes and the Sydney Cup in Australia.

Harris Tweed won the Gr.2 Tulloch Stakes, ran Group One seconds in the AJC Derby, Caulfield Cup, and the Air New Zealand Stakes and ran fifth in two Melbourne Cups.

He was a grandson of Blue Denim and from the same family was Bayly’s dual Group One VRC Derby and Underwood Stakes winner Lion Tamer, trained by Baker with Andrew Forsman.

A memorial service will be held at Woodhill, 167 Grange Rd Tauranga, on Saturday, June 13 at 11am.