THE EARLY DAYS
Hayfields Racing was established in 2015 by Charlotte Littlefield and Julian Hay.
Charlotte grew up in Somerset England and from the day she could walk, she found herself riding a horse at her mother’s riding school. She excelled at pony club, mounted games, rode for a National Hunt/Point to Point yard and eventually found her way onto the British Eventing Team at the European Championships in Poland with her home produced Irish Thoroughbred named Jacko’s Delight (pictured below).
Charlotte first arrived in Australia in 2005. She completed a Bachelor of Business at Deakin University and started pre-training racehorses to make some money on the side. It was then that she met Julian, a former lawyer who had swapped the legal books to follow his passion for breeding and racing.
Charlotte’s growing interest in racing lead her to Cranbourne where she rode trackwork for Pat Trotter and Ken Keys and it didn’t take her long to obtain her own trainer’s licence. She trained her first winner from only her second starter in 2015 when Bergerac Rose saluted at Kilmore.
Whilst the stable has grown, Charlotte maintains a very hands on approach, still enjoys riding a few each day and remains inspired by her English roots which influence her training each day.
Charlotte and Julian are passionate about the horses, pride themselves on taking an ethical and transparent approach to racing and forging lasting and honest relationships with their owners.
TRAINING PHILOSOPHY
Charlotte has always felt more at home on top of a horse rather than sitting back in a trainers’ tower watching trackwork through binoculars.
With a manageable number of 20 horses in work at any one time, Charlotte is able to maintain a hands on approach to her training. Whether she is riding a gallop, saddling one up, bandaging legs or washing one down, she is never far from her horses.
Charlotte surrounds herself with a team of elite vets, chiropractors and farriers to ensure each horse receives the optimum treatment to exceed on the racetrack.
With a water walker, ice spa, in-ground ground treadmill, ultra sound machines, massage machines, heart rate monitors and a new horse solarium, each horse receives the best in training and rehabilitation aids.
Training racehorses in Australia is very different to her homeland but she still incorporates many of her English ways into her day to day training. Variety is the key and her horses are often seeing working up the hills in the nearby Bunyip State Forest, working in the dressage arena or schooling over cross-country jumps.
