Glasgow-born owner is chasing Classic success in Britain with 2000 Guineas contender Royal Scotsman – but increasingly his focus is overseas, as he tells Laura King
GB: It is rare that you speak to an interviewee so interesting that you don’t want to end the conversation, but that is the case with Dr Jim Hay.
If you don’t immediately know his name that might be because his 60-strong band of racehorses run in the name of his wife Fitri.
However, it is Jim’s lifelong love of the sport which has led to their current seat at racing’s top table – both at home, where Dewhurst runner-up Royal Scotsman is set to carry their pink-and-green silks in the 2,000 Guineas on Saturday [May 6], and on the international scene, where notable victories have included G1 success in the US.
Born in Glasgow in 1950, 72-year-old Hay isn’t from a racing family and had a Presbyterian upbringing. Instead, a longstanding interest can be attributed to a maths-mad grandmother.
“When I was six or seven my grandmother and I used to watch racing because she was fanatical about mental arithmetic,” says the affable Scot, from his home in Dubai. “She’d ask me to work out the fractions and if I got it wrong, she’d rap me across the knuckles. By the time I was 12 or 13 I was chalking the board in my local bookies. To this day my mental arithmetic remains pretty good.”
‘Pretty good’ is probably an understatement. Hay has a BSc in applied chemistry and a doctorate in physical chemistry from Strathclyde University. From there, he got a job at BP and eventually left the company 27 years later, having been made senior executive.
Asked if he calls himself a self-made man, he plays it down, however. “I could be called that, I suppose,” he says. “We own a private company [JMH Group] which we established after I left BP in 2002.”
This is some private company, mind you. JMH incorporates the Fosroc chemical manufacturing company, which operates in more than 70 countries and employs more than 1,700 staff. On the board is economics and marketing graduate Fitri, Hay’s wife since 1996 after they met in her native Indonesia. The current huge involvement in racing stems from around that time.
“When Fitri and I returned from Indonesia we bought a house so near to Sandown that I could walk to the track,” he says. “From there I could get to lots of racecourses so Fitri was a racing widow, which meant she decided to join in. She loves the big days and I always say there’s no such thing as being a good loser – she certainly fits the bill there!”
The Hays were guests of honour in the Royal Procession at Ascot back in 2011 when Fame And Glory, who they owned in partnership with Coolmore, won the Gold Cup. Not surprisingly, he names this as his racing highlight. “We were invited for lunch at Windsor Castle and somehow ended up in the carriage,” he recalls. “It was like an adult fantasy day!”
The partnership with Coolmore also gave them days to remember with Cape Blanco, who won three US G1s, and Deauville, who carried the Hays’ colours to victory in the G1 Belmont Derby in 2016. On their own, they were successful with Here Comes When, who sluiced through near bottomless ground to win Goodwood’s flagship Sussex Stakes in 2017, beating Ribchester. Now though, the owners are taking a more international approach.
“UK racing is in a terrible mess,” says Hay. “We have been moving most of our horses into America. Highland Chief won more than a million there last year and it’s very hard to do that in the UK. If they’re not going to win a Classic or a Group 1 then we’ll move them to Dubai or the US.”
Hay reports that sadly the Graham Motion-trained Highland Chief, who won the Man o’War Stakes at Belmont last May, has suffered a tendon injury and is likely to miss the whole season.
He has plenty of young horses waiting in the wings, however, including four purchased at the recent Goffs Dubai Breeze-up Sale at which he was leading buyer, spending €1,629,631. The second-highest lot, an €518,519 son of US Triple Crown winner Justify, is in pre-training in the UK before heading to Ralph Beckett.
“Willie Browne, who consigned the Justify colt, said he is in the top three he’s ever bred,” says the proud new owner. “We got a lot of advice and knew a lot about that horse before we bought it. He’ll probably start off running in the UK and then come back here [to Dubai]. The others are out-and-out dirt horses and hopefully they’ll be a better programme for two-year-olds in November and December here.”
The Hays, who have two daughters, Jasmine and Catriona, will continue to have a smart string in the UK, with older sprinters Equilateral and Khaadem flying the flag at the bigger meetings. It’s three-year-old Royal Scotsman, second in the G1 Dewhurst, who has them most excited, however.
“Royal Scotsman is the standout,” says Hay. “Everything’s all set for him to go straight to Newmarket for the Guineas. Paul Cole thinks he’s the real deal but the bookies don’t think he’ll stay a mile.
“Jim Crowley couldn’t pull him up in the Dewhurst so we’re confident he’ll get it. He broke the track record in the G2 Richmond at Goodwood which is why a lot of people think he won’t stay, but Paul Cole will remind you that Generous won the Coventry before he won the Derby. Royal Scotsman has the Derby entry too.”
Royal Scotsman was a 125,000gns yearling purchase, but the Hays have also become breeders, with Dubai winner Southern Artist one of their recent successes. In this, Hay takes advice from Alex Cole, his racing manager for 17 years.
“Alex is a walking pedigree book,” he says. “We’ve got mares with Hugo Merry, Coolmore and Brian O’Rourke who used to run the National Stud. We have eight mares between the UK and Ireland and four in US.
“You have to breed at the level we’re playing at. Of course, the aim is to breed a stallion and with Highland Chief and Royal Scotsman you can see we’ve heavily invested in Gleneagles. Plenty of people seem to think he’s the real deal.”
Unlike some big owners who might perhaps lose track, Hay knows exactly what is going on with his string, which numbers 43 in the UK, eight in Dubai and seven in the US. He has a clear conscience, too.
“Every single racehorse we retire we have to find a good home for them,” he says, on what is an increasingly push-button topic. “Alex Cole is very careful with that.”
Despite all that, he claims there are no favourites, saying: “My favourite anything is the next one – my favourite whisky is the next one.” Are you interested in whisky? “Heavily”, he chuckles, before saying, without hesitation, that Laphroaig is the best Single Malt.
We digress; back to the horses. Is there one race that the Hays would particularly like to win? As with the whisky, the answer is immediate. “The Derby,” he says, “followed by the Arc. Highland Chief ran in the Derby the year the Coolmore pacemaker [Serpentine] went 20 lengths clear and won it. He perhaps didn’t get the best ride that day. But jockeys are like goalkeepers – their mistakes are exposed.”
Hay says he prefers to remain low-profile and, despite huge racing and personal success, he remains a likeable and approachable figure on the racecourse. He’ll be happy if his horses make the headlines for him, however – and it’s not long until Royal Scotsman has the chance to do just that.
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