YOUNGSTAR HEADS UP WALLER BID FOR GLORY
STATISTICS can be deceptive but it is plain they show how dominant champion trainer Chris Waller has been in the Queensland winter in the past decade.
Waller is headed for another big carnival start with six horses accepted for the Group Two Hollindale Stakes (1800m), a race he has won twice, at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Last year’s Queensland Oaks winner Youngstar heads the contingent made up of Life Less Ordinary, Mister Sea Wolf, My Nordic Hero, Shilleagh, and Savvy Coup. He will also saddle several chances in other feature races in the Group Three Gold Coast Guineas, Gold Coast Cup, Ken Russell Memorial and Australian Turf Club Trophy.
Waller has trained 43 Group One, Two and Three winners in Queensland and is rapidly hauling in the late Tommy Smith’s record of 62.
Many of the current Group races didn’t exist when Smith compiled his record over 35 years but he was aided by winning the O’Shea Stakes 14 times and the Queensland Derby 12 times. But Waller has put together his Queensland Group race wins since May 2010 when Pressday won the Champagne Classic at Doomben. Not that Waller hasn’t been dominant everywhere and has 394 career Group and Listed wins including 46 this season.
However he has a special affection for Queensland racing which he showed by opening a Gold Coast stable in August 2017.
The stable has been a major success with 97 winners and $9.6 million in prize money.
Waller’s Queensland manager Paul Shailer said Waller took great interest in the Gold Coast stable and constantly switched horses between it and Sydney.
“Chris has worked out a system of moving the horses between the states. For instance Youngstar and a few others have done their final work in Sydney and are due to leave on Wednesday night,” Shailer said.
Meanwhile, the winter plans for Anthony Freedman’s Plein Ciel, who had been second favourite for the Hollindale, were thrown into disarray when he was made third emergency for the race.