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aaron_bain | Aaron Bain Our Story

ABR'S BEGINNING

Aaron Bain, born into the sport of Harness Racing, attended his first race meeting at 2 days old, a chapter that was one day to be the first of the ABR Story.
 
From a desire to compete at the highest level in sport, a career that started with cricket, swimming, and football like most young teenagers, soon rose the passion for horse racing which overpowered the desire to do much else.
 
Forging his craft in Harness Racing from a young age driving the pony trotters, to then working closely with his father, Peter Bain, training from their Gawler property with a small family-bred boutique stable, Aaron spent his early years in the cart as a Young Driver, with his first winner on Carnival Rose at Kapunda, in February 2009.
 
Aaron’s training career began in 2014, in partnership with close friend Jake Webster (now, Summit Bloodstock) in a stable that quickly grew off their success from 3 horses to 30, becoming a formidable young-innovative training partnership.
 
In 2018, with Jake departing the training side for a career outside of racing momentarily, Aaron took over the Harness Racing stable which in 2023 won a first SA Trainer’s Premiership with 103 winners (109 nationally) for the season in SA, the first time in a decade someone had reached such milestone.

THE ABR STORY

As at the end of September 2024, the Harness training operation sat with 550 winners, 587 placings, from 1907 starters, with a career strike rate of 29%, currently this season going at 38%.  A measure the stable prides themselves on, achieving the highest success for their owners.
 
Outside the training ranks and putting the ABR name in lights in recent years on the national stage, the achievement of being winning slot holder of the first ever Eureka ‘The World’s Richest Harness Race’ in 2023, partnering with SA’s own Encipher, would have to be one of the biggest highlights of the overall ABR Story, on its journey to achieving their own Group 1 success in years to come as a training operation.



The transition to Thoroughbreds, started in 2022, with the passion to expand and grow our footprint in South Australia, being a unique dual-code operation, diversifying our business for our owners, and placing the stable for a successful future in Horse racing.
 
The first winner coming in early 2022, with Finch N Chips, being the answer to that Trivia question in years to come.  A chapter follows that of the Harness racing stable back in 2014, some 10 years ago, that started with three horses and quickly evolved to a stable of 30, being based at Gawler & Barossa Jockey Club, training on- course. 
 
July 2024, quite possibly the biggest chapter of the ABR story to be written, the team now calls the iconic Angaston Park (formerly Lindsay Park) home, in the Barossa, the heartland of South Australia.
 
A training property, that arches in the history of 7000+ winners, 780 Group & Listed winners, 42 Trainers Premierships, has made the Hayes & McEvoy names famous since the 1960’s… the ABR Era awaits.
 
The late Colin Hayes’ quote, "the history belongs to those who plan for it", made famous across a dynasty of racing is a quote that Aaron himself has lived by in his short, ambitious career, since the first race meeting he attended at 2 days old.