By Duane Ranger
A memorial service for missing Northland horseman, Shane Hayes, will be held in Mangawhai next Monday (March 13) in the ‘The Club’ at 219 Molesworth Drive starting at 1pm.
Pukekohe trainer, Peter Blanchard, who had been close family friends with Hayes’ for more than four decades, said the service would be a celebration of Hayes’ life.
“We want to stress that Shane has been listed by the police as a ‘missing person’ and because he’s been missing for a month now the family thought it was time to hold the service.
“It will be a time to look back on Shane’s life with family and friends and talk and learn all about him. He was a fuller than life character who got on well with all ages, especially children. He is a huge loss,” Blanchard said.
Blanchard said Hayes was the most safety conscious person he knew but sadly only his boat was recovered after he launched his vessel on February 8 from Mangawhai Harbour.
The boat was later recovered after it had crashed into an outlying island, but there was no sign of Hayes. Blanchard said his mate’s wife Laureen raised the alarm that evening, sparking an immediate search.
Coastguard rescue teams, NZ Police, family, friends and the wider community continued to search over the past month via land, sea, but to no avail.
As well as his wife, Hayes leaves behind a son and a daughter -Jackie and Harrison.
“I’ve known Shane since I went to first work at his father Don’s stable in Kumeu as a 16-year-old in the mid 1970s. He was just 11 and I was 16, but he was driving horses at six and taught me how to drive a car and a tractor.
“We have been very close since and there’s hardly been a Christmas go by when out families haven’t go together. We have all taken this very hard,” Blanchard said.
Hayes was born in Kumeu and went straight to his father’s stable when he left school. He was a very good junior driver and early on the father and son combo had a good pacer named Genuine Bid who placed in the1991 Franklin Cup.
“I learnt my trade off Don and then when I went to the United States to train in 1992 Shane came and worked with me as my second trainer. We must have trained more than 100 winners together up there.
“Then when Shane came back he worked alongside his father again and they had the very good trotter Chiola Cola, who won 18 races ($363,889), including the Dominion Handicap, the National Trot and the New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All.
“They all raced in Shane’s name and he drove them as well. Those three big wins came in 1996,” Blanchard said.
Then from 2000 Hayes spent five years in Australia and had good success over there especially with the open class pacer Lord Vader. In fact he brought that 11-win ($141,483) son of Armbro Operative back to New Zealand to compete in the 2006 Auckland Cup and ran a half-neck and head third behind Mi Muchacho and Mainland Banner.
That was Lord Vader’s final race.
Blanchard said Hayes spent his final few years training a small team out of Ruakaka but found the travelling too much and reluctantly gave the game away in favour of driving concrete and water trucks for a living.
“Harness racing was an immense passion for Shane. He absolutely loved the sport. He also loved living at Mangawhai because that was his haven and he absolutely loved fishing.
“And he was a very good fisherman and top sailor with it as well. I can’t stress enough just how safety conscious he was. It’s all very hard to take in,” his lifetime mate said.
Blanchard said a ‘Give-a-Little’ page had been set up to help the family with search and rescue. He said that would be operational for another month.
As at March 6 there had been 235 generous donors who had given $23,514 to the page.
Northland woman Melissa Wilson set up the page because the local community, friends, family and people further afield have been asking for ways in which they can help.
“All funds raised will go towards the significant search costs involved to find Shane.
“Funds will be paid to a verified bank account of Melissa Wilson on behalf of Support the Search For Shane,” Wilson said.
The link to the page is here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/searchforshane
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