REACHING 100 VFL games in the modern era is a significant achievement, with fewer and fewer players getting there.

In fact, there are only 16 players across the competition’s 21 teams who have celebrated that milestone, plus another three when you add their NEAFL games – and only three, Ben Jolley, Sam Dunell and Tom O’Sullivan – who have played more than 130.

After a false start when he came down with gastro and was a late withdrawal from Carlton's win over Gold Coast, he will become the 17th when the Blues take on Richmond at Ikon Park on Easter Sunday, and his achievement becomes even more impressive when you consider he is an assistant trainer of Hayes family racing empire Lindsay Park, in charge of 46 horses at its Flemington base.

It means he is hours into his day when everyone else is just getting out of bed, and often has to try to catch a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon before heading off to training at Footscray and now the Blues.

But being a Hayes means you don’t give up, and desire to play footy at the highest level possible continues to drive him through any issues a lack of sleep could bring.

“I seem to always be trying to chase hours of sleep because VFL and horse racing are at the wrong end of each day – one is very early and one is very late,” he said.

“I always knew it was going to be difficult (playing 100 VFL games), but there’s always been a little burning of self-belief in there otherwise there’s no point having a crack – I definitely thought it was achievable but I knew it was going to take a lot of hard work.

“It is a reflection of my footy career, it took me a long time to get drafted and I was in and out of the AFL team when I was in the AFL system, but (the VFL) has been a great league for me to develop my football … it always has high quality players going through the level and it’s always a great brand of footy.

The workload of horse training hasn’t affected his footy – Hayes’ 99 VFL games (for 61 goals) has yielded premierships in 2014 and 2016, selection in the 2016 State game against the SANFL (21 disposals, two goals) and the 2018 best-and-fairest.

The Bulldogs promoted him with pick 78 in the 2018 NAB AFL Draft at the age of 23, where he went on to play 11 senior games in 2019-20, but he couldn’t break into a stacked midfield last year and finished equal second in the Footscray B&F before losing his spot on the list and answering a call from Ikon Park.

“I was in some strong form but I wasn’t getting a look-in at AFL level, so I read the form guide so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt regardless,” he said of his delisting.

“Carlton expressed some interest in the pre-season and I just followed that interest over there and was training with the AFL group twice a week in the pre-season – they asked me to stay on for the VFL and I’ve been loving it.

Hayes, 26, listed the premierships as his career highlights along with playing with his twin brother JD, the now Lindsay Park head co-trainer (with their older brother Ben) who was good enough to play 27 games for Footscray from 2014-16 before turning his full attention to the horses, while he will always be grateful for his career development at Whitten Oval.

“(Playing with JD) was pretty special – he is now a head trainer, so it was pretty good we got to spend that time together playing footy,” he said.

“Chris Maple has been a big influence on my football career, Jordan Russell, Ash Hansen, Steve Grace – I’ve been lucky because I’ve been around so long I’ve had a lot of people influence my footy career, so it would be hard to name them all.”

And Hayes, who has had 33 and 37 disposals in Carlton’s first two wins – including a first-ever thrashing of the highly-fancied Box Hill Hawks last week – as he drives towards another AFL opportunity in the NAB Mid-Season Draft, said there was no ceiling on how far the Blues could go.

“We’re playing a very exciting brand of football and everyone has got a lot of confidence in the brand we’re playing so there’s no reason why the success can’t continue on,” he said.

“I see no reason why we can’t go the whole way – I think it’s a very exciting team and there’s great depth on both the AFL and the VFL lists.

“(Footscray) is definitely a great feeder program and it is the same at Carlton, those aligned clubs seem to be promoting from within a lot now and it is really set up for those players to find a pathway through to the AFL.

“There are no promises but good footy speaks for itself so I’ll just keep trying to play the best brand of footy I can and hopefully it attracts the attention of Carlton or anyone else in the mid-season draft.”