Waller record race
CHRIS Waller could do the unthinkable and train 200 Sydney winners this season.
At the halfway point of the 2017-18 racing year, Waller has prepared 93 metropolitan winners, secured his eighth successive Sydney trainers’ title and is ahead of record pace.
Waller set the all-time record of 169 Sydney wins in 2015-16, breaking the previous standard of 167.5 wins he set in 2012-13. There have been 57 Sydney race meetings this season with another 58 remaining, including the Hawkesbury and Scone stand-alone race days.
Waller is averaging 1.63 winners per city meeting this season and if he can maintain his current strike rate – and that is a big “if” – he will end the season with close to 200 winners.
There are actually fewer city race meetings in Sydney each season now – 113 compared to 128 earlier this decade – which only underlines Waller’s record-breaking achievements.
It is remarkable to think that Waller could even challenge the 200-win barrier in a single Sydney season, considering racing legend Tommy Smith set a record that stood the test of time with 156 wins in 1975-76.
Smith’s daughter Gai Waterhouse eventually equalled that mark in 2002-03 and the only other trainer to prepare at least 150 city winners in a season is John Hawkes with a personal best of 153 in 2006-07. Waller wasn’t entertaining talk of breaking the 200-win barrier but his Sydney season record is a more realistic target.
“The stable has had a good first six months of the season, we are pleased with our results so far,’’ Waller said.
“I probably won’t think seriously about the record until there is about three months to go. We have to try and maintain this pace but if we are in with a chance going into the winter, we will have a look at it. We could give the record a nudge.’’
Waller’s modern-day dominance of Sydney racing has drawn comparisons with the Smith era when he won 33 consecutive trainers’ premierships between 1952 and 1985.
Sky Thoroughbred Central’s form expert Ron Dufficy did a lot of riding for the Smith stable in the early 1980s and is in a better position than most to compare Waller with the former great trainer.