Waller in box seat to set Sydney benchmark

Thursday 4 July 2013, 2:12pm

It promises to be a meeting of significance for Chris Waller and Sydney racing on Saturday but the trainer insists there will be nothing different about his planning for Rosehill.

Nevertheless, Waller appears to have a lot of angles covered as he tries to break a long-standing Sydney trainers' record.

With 11 runners across seven races, Waller will be at unbackable odds to overtake Tommy Smith and Gai Waterhouse for the most city winners in a season.

Six of those horses are favourite in early betting with Secessio the shortest priced at $3.40 to win the TAB Rewards Handicap (2400m).

Waller will also saddle up the Civic Stakes favourite in Said Com ($4.20) with his hand in the Listed race strengthened by the inclusion of Nocturnelle and Disciple.

Smith, easily the most dominant trainer of his era, led in 156 winners in 1975-76, a mark equalled by his daughter in 2002-03.

Waller goes into his home-track meeting with 155-1/2 winners but he has learnt not to get ahead of himself when it comes to records following a mini run of outs before a winning double at Warwick Farm on Wednesday .

"When you are coming up to a mark it just seems to take an eternity," Waller said.

"All I can do is just make sure I've got chances in races."

Not surprisingly, Waller's Rosehill statistics are clearly his best with 51 winners from 270 starters so far this season returning a 19 per cent winning strike rate and more than $4.3 million in stakes.

He trained a career-best five winners at a Rosehill meeting in May, acknowledging the value of a "home track" advantage.

"I think it is worth a half length to our horses," he said.

If early betting is a guide, Waller could be celebrating as early as the second race on Saturday with Oompa Loompa into $3.80 in the Become An ATC Sponsor Handicap (1200m).

The three-year-old chased home stablemate Relaxed And Happy last start after winning over Saturday's course three runs ago.

On the back of a favourable weather forecast, Rosehill track manager Chris Toogood says racing will be run on a drying surface.

"With a few more days of good weather, there's a chance of an upgrade into the slow category," he said.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »