LOCATION:
Rosehill and Warwick Farm
FACILITIES:
Rosehill – 148 boxes, 2 treadmills, 1 aqua treadmill and multiple walkers.
Warwick Farm – 23 boxes including sheltered yards, a walker and access to a swimming pool.
BACKGROUND
Twenty years ago, very few people had heard the name Chris Waller. In 1998 the young Kiwi Lad from Foxton took a mare on a journey to success at Wyong, the rest, as they say, is history.
These days, Chris Waller is best known as the trainer of incredible mare Winx, whose career he has handled superbly. The pressure which he faces every time she races, and every time a race is chosen for her, must be huge but he stands calm and assured in the eye of the storm, his dignity and composure matched only by his humility, courtesy and candour.
Like Winx, he is a credit to the sport, just as he has been ever since he arrived in Sydney as a complete unknown only a couple of decades ago.
Unlike so many who have made it to the top of the training tree, Waller, the son of a dairy farmer from Foxton, about 100 km north of Wellington on New Zealand’s North Island, started out with neither family connections nor money behind him.
Foxton might only have a population of about 3,000, but it has a racecourse and training track. For many years it also had Paddy Busuttin, one of the leading trainers in the land. Waller started work for Busuttin when he left school, impressing his boss so quickly that he was asked to accompany Castletown on a trip to Sydney when still a teenager. From the outset, Waller’s dream was to be a trainer; and the dream became a reality, albeit in a very small way, after Busuttin accepted an offer to train in Singapore in 1997.
In the winter of 1998, Waller was running a 4-year-old maiden called Party Belle (NZ) (Oregon {USA}) around the lesser tracks in the central and southern areas of the North Island. She wasn’t doing particularly well. Her trainer, though, was bold enough to take her across the Tasman to race In New South Wales. It had been a very rewarding trip, and it gave her young trainer plenty to think about on his return to Foxton. After five unsuccessful runs in New Zealand over the summer and autumn, Party Belle and her trainer were back in Sydney the following winter when, astonishingly, the mare again came alive, scoring a hat-trick in town in May 1999 (at Randwick, Warwick Farm and Randwick) under another Kiwi hoop, Larry Cassidy. Omens don’t come any stronger than this one. Waller’s future surely lay in Sydney rather than Foxton.
Redevelopment work at Rosehill at the end of the last century meant that there were vacancies for new trainers. Waller let the Sydney Turf Club know that he was available and was duly offered stabling.
Despite starting with a seemingly minimal chance of filling the 20 boxes which he had been allocated because virtually nobody knew who he was and he had no money, Waller just kept his nose to the grindstone, concentrating on the few horses which he did have, conducting his business with friendliness and integrity, and working very, very hard.
Initially the Waller household could only rely on the earnings of his wife Stephanie from her modelling career, but slowly the Sydney racing establishment began to notice that there was a young Kiwi making a great fist of the training out at Rosehill: and he seemed to be a nice guy, and honest too. Success started to follow.
Chris Waller’s first Group 1 winner came in April 2008 when Triple Honour (NZ) (Honours List {lre}) landed the G1 Doncaster H. at Randwick. And has since followed with 125 further Group 1 wins.
NOTABLE WINS
126 Group 1 wins including Winx’s record breaking four Cox Plate victories.
Caulfield Cup (2020 Verry Elleegant)
Caulfield Guineas x2 (2015 Press Statement, 2018 The Autumn Sun)
Coolmore Stud Stakes x4 (2013 Zoustar, 2014 Brazen Beau, 2015 Japonisme, 2020 September Run)
Cox Plate x4 (Winx 2015-18)
Doncaster Handicap x6 (2008 Triple Honour, 2010 Rangirangdoo, 2013,2014 Sacred Falls, 2015 Kermadec, 2016 Winx)
TJ Smith Stakes x2 (Nature Strip 2020, 2021)
Queen Elizabeth Stakes x5 (2011 My Kingdom Of Fife, 2013 Reliable Man, 2017, 2018, 2019 Winx)
CONTACT
Phone (Sydney Office): 02 9760 5700
E-mail: office@cwallerracing.com
Website: https://cwallerracing.com/
Facebook: @chriswallerracing
Instagram: @chris_waller_racing
Twitter: @cwallerracing