Winx’s trainer feels heat of stardom
Fame isn’t something the 43- year- old New Zealander imagined when he slipped into Sydney in 1998
The good thing is integrity is so strong in this game. Anyone who cheats runs a great risk. They get caught and they’re gone. I think that is a wonderful thing. Chris Waller
One day at a time you get into a cage that you don’t see yourself getting into. Next thing you’re in it and the door is locked. In Sydney it might be called the Druitt St test. Down south, replace Druitt with the Bourke St Mall. You are a ‘ famous’ racing person. You’re recognised by your wife and kids — only just, because you see so little of them — and they know you at the racetrack. But do they know you beyond it?
A little, Racing. com.
“Probably 2.5 per per cent ( recognition) in Druitt St ( Sydney) and maybe 5 per cent in the Bourke St Mall,” Waller says from a cafe at Crown Casino as he contemplates life, fame, paranoia and Winx.
“Yeah probably more recognised in Melbourne, funny enough, and that’s a great advertisement for the way Melbourne embraces sport and racing.”
Winx’s superstardom has dragged Waller into unfamiliar territory, into a spotlight that makes him blink.
Fame isn’t something the 43- yearold New Zealander imagined when he slipped into Sydney in 1998 with a girlfriend ( now wife, Stephanie), two maxed- out credit cards and one horse.
Waller methodically began chalking up winners from the mid2000s but the recognition was mostly from ‘ racing tragics’ who observed the steady rise of a man who has become one of only a small handful of genuinely recognisable racing ‘ stars’.
Recognition, that feeling that eyes are upon you, makes Waller ‘ extremely appreciative’ and a little uneasy. He says he has always been paranoid about how he is perceived by others. A wander through Melbourne, maybe along the river, makes him self- conscious. The urge is to be invisible.
“People might get a laugh when they read this but when you know you are being noticed — and let’s face it, it’s because of Winx — you sort of look around and go ‘ Gee that person has noticed me’. You really don’t know how to act. Do you look down or do you acknowledge it? It really does sound silly but it’s so unfamiliar.”
It has been a glittering career and a heavenly gift — Winx — but it has often been bittersweet.
“I couldn’t admit if before but I’ve come to terms with it now. This ( ca- Chris Waller tells reer) has taken over my life,” he said.
“One day at a time you get into a cage that you don’t see yourself getting into. Next thing you’re in it and the door is locked.
“I’m very disciplined and mentally I’m great but you also know that the challenge ahead is to get out of that cage and get back to some sort of normality.” In some ways he longs for the day Winx i s no longer there. Peter Moody said something similar after Black Caviar. The champion horse experience can be claustrophobic.
“Part of me is looking forward to it,” Waller said. “That’s my shining light — the pressure release — on the dark side of Winx retiring. While you don’t want her to retire, you want to be able to think about something else, then try and find the next one.
“You’re thinking of Winx like you would be your wedding a month out, or in the same way you would the birth of your first child. She just keeps popping up.
“Like this week leading into the Cox Plate; you think about it 10 times a day. You want the race run now, not in five days’ time, because you want it over.
“You don’t really have much to worry about. She’s in fantastic form. You don’t have to make her run faster. You don’t worry about the weather because it makes no difference to her. You don’t worry about barrier draws or rivals, unless the next champion is coming through and that doesn’t seem to be the case. But you just want it over with.”
Waller remembers the backlash t wo years ago when he kept mum about a minor operation to remove a bone chip from Winx’s knee. The procedure was so minor, it wasn’t even necessary. “I should have said something at the time but I didn’t and each week that went along it became more pressing but we decided to wait until she trialled, then it was sort of too late. We got hate mail. I guess there was a lesson in it,” he said. Even before Winx, Waller says he was mindful of perception about him and his stable; and of racing. He had leapt onto the scene in Sydney in a handful of years.
“I was paranoid a few years ago when we were going really well, with three or four runners in Group Ones, that maybe we were perceived as too strong, getting too powerful, and that maybe that wasn’t a good thing in some way.
“It almost came as a relief that we then had a couple of seasons where we had less runners in these races.”
Waller says that with success has come a determination to be seen as an honest, attractive shop window for a sport regarded with scepticism.
“We could have a bet, we could provide less transparent information than we do, but what’s the point? I want to be here for the long term and want to represent myself properly.
“The good thing is integrity is so strong in this game. Anyone who cheats runs a great risk. They get caught and they’re gone. I think that is a wonderful thing.”
He says most trainers of big squads have inadvertent slip- ups, as Waller has from time to time, including a ‘ bizarre’ scenario late last year when one of his horses tested positive to ice. Waller was whacked $ 30,000 by stewards.
“You have to state your innocence, then put on a brave face,” he said.
In jockey Hugh Bowman, Waller has found an on- track ally and cherished off- track friend. They understand each others’ lives.
“He and I know what each other is going through and not just with Winx. He’s so cool, calm and collected, beyond explanation,” he said.
“I rang him last Sunday — which I really never do — and asked him what he was up to. He said he was wandering through Coogee with his kids, looking for ice creams.
“I said ‘ Mate a lot’s changed. Two or three years ago we’d have been looking for a beer garden somewhere on a Sunday.”
Waller says he barely drinks these days, maybe a beer or a glass of red after an exhausting day. He makes sure he sleeps six hours a night. “Seven is like being on holiday,” he said. He works ridiculous hours but Sunday is sacred. The loves of his life are wife Stephanie — my ‘ dream wife’ — and young kids, Tyler and Nikita.
“Without Stephanie I really don’t think I could handle it,” he said.
Winx will be gone in a blink but until then there is a career twilight to be thought out. Barring disaster, Winx will win her third Cox Plate in a canter, then contest the Emirates Stakes at Flemington a fortnight later “so long as she pulls up okay”.
Waller realises Winx will never have the unbeaten allure of Black Caviar but says he can tick one of that mare’s boxes, by winning overseas. The logistics will be difficult. She has been entered for the Japan Cup in November ‘ but only as a backup if something goes wrong’.
Waller says the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot next June appears the right race, possibly via the Dubai Duty Free in March.
First, however, comes today. For Waller, it can’t come soon enough.
Tomorrow, if he’s still in town, the famous trainer of the famous horse may even take a stroll through the mall.