Australia’s Kiwi front-runner
Since moving his racehorse training business to Sydney, Chris Waller has become arguably our greatest ever transTasman sporting export. The dizzying success, writes Bevan Hurley, is based on a simple philosophy of respect and humility.
What seemed like a victory procession as Winx lined up for her final race was a time of suffocating pressure for her Kiwi trainer Chris Waller. His star charge had won 32 races on the trot and an expectant Australian public demanded a 33rd.
Waller had long ago sensed he was no longer just in the business of winning races and entertaining punters.
Winx was being mentioned in the same breath as Bradman, Freeman and Fraser, the top tier of sporting mythology in a country whose athletes – both two and four-legged – are woven into the national identity like nowhere else.
As far as Waller was concerned, she had to win her last race.
On that day in April 2019, rival jockeys snapped selfies with Winx as she was being led around the birdcage at the Royal Randwick course in Sydney.
The champion mare barely acknowledged the huge roar that went out as she was led out of the tunnel underneath the heaving stands.
That day $4m was waged on her on the tote alone, even though she was only paying $1.04 to win in a quality field.
Winning races was one thing but Winx was also keeping millineries, dressmakers and vineyards in business.
Everyone wanted a piece of her.
As the 2000m race began, Winx was last out of the gates, before settling towards the back of the field. She was up against a top field, which included Hartnell – a one-time rival back when she was compared to other horses.
Jockey Hugh Bowman expertly worked her through the field and, as they turned into the straight, moved her into a gap.
Sixth at the 800m, fifth at the 400m, and into the lead about 200m out to win by one-and-a-half lengths.
‘‘I don’t think we really enjoyed the last part of her career,’’ says Waller. ‘‘But we certainly enjoyed it when she hit the front in that very last race. It was pretty special.
Winx suffered the only losses of her racing career as a three-year-old, as Waller nursed her through a growing phase.
She became dominant as a four-year-old and won at distances from 1300m to 2040m, in weightfor-age and handicap conditions, and from being the pacesetter to storming home from the rear.
‘‘Each race was treated as a grand final. And it was record after record and challenge after challenge to make sure she stayed in that good form. And then it was just a matter of when it would be her last race.
‘‘The last 12 months we were thinking this could be her last race, and we thought what are we going to say, how are we going to put on a brave face.’’
Waller had a losing speech prepared in his head for years, just in case. He never had to use it.
‘‘I remember getting messages from all walks of life because she was touching so many people’s lives. And I mean from the unfortunate people who have a disability who saw her as an idol and someone to follow, all the way through to her last race. She got messages from the Queen.
‘‘It was a learning how to deal with that expectation, not to get too carried away and be disrespectful of other great horses that she was being compared to.’’
Chris Waller grew up on his parent’s dairy farm in Himatangi. Palmerston North, 30km away, was the big smoke. There were only two career paths that appealed to Waller; become an All Black, or follow his father into the family business.
A third option occurred to him watching Kiwi storm to the 1983 Melbourne Cup. Kiwi’s trainer Snow Lupton came from an hour up State Highway 3 at Waverley. Waller’s uncle and grandfather trained horses, and they had family connections with Lupton.
Soon he had a poster of Kiwi’s jockey Jimmy Cassidy on his bedroom wall.
At 18 he started working as a strapper in the stables of Foxton trainer Paddy Busuttin, quickly moving up to stable foreman, before earning his trainer’s certificate at the age of 23.
He recalls learning one particularly valuable lesson from Busuttin – to treat horses as individuals, as human beings.
‘‘It has been the philosophy all along. That individual care and attention, growing up on a farm and learning how to look after animals.’’
Racing was his ticket to see the country, and he was soon taking horses to some of the dozens of racetracks sprawled around the country from Wairoa to Wingatui.
Waller’s first ever win as a trainer came with Go Morgan at Trentham in 1997.
The ‘‘tyro trainer’’ quickly marked himself out as a savvy tactician. He’d show up for early morning track work with a notebook and studiously make notes about each horse.
‘‘He was so intent on learning,’’ Busuttin said in a recent interview.
When Waller was growing up, racing still occupied an essential part of New Zealand life. Names like Bonecrusher, Our Waverley Star and the Busuttin-trained Castletown were as much a part of Kiwi sporting folklore as Devoy, Mourie, Ferguson and MacDonald.
But the ‘90s marked difficult times for racing in New Zealand. A lack of investment saw smaller rural tracks fall into disrepair and prize money dwindle.
Soon enough Waller was joining Busuttin on raiding missions over to Sydney.
‘‘I got a taste, had a hunger for that type of environment,’’ says Waller. ‘‘It’s quite an appealing sport for a young person.’’
Returning from weekends in Sydney, he would go back and tell his mates about meeting big industry names. ‘‘That’s how it started for me. That’s where the passion came from to come back to Sydney one day.’’
Waller left his stables in Foxton for good in 2000
‘‘I can’t wine and dine everybody, it’s either all or nothing so I take the nothing approach.’’ Chris Waller