Waller weekly news 14 september 2017 Zumbelina. The team were able to bring home three winners at our home track on Saturday courtesy of Zumbelina, Quick Defence and Wayanka. First up from a spell, Zumbelina was impressive and is bred and raced by Richard Treweeke, co-owner of Winx. Here s hoping Mr Treweeke s run of luck continues this weekend with the great mare shooting to make her winning streak 20-straight when she lines up in the Gr.1 George Main and on Sunday be sure to tune into 60 Minutes at 8.30pm for a feature on Winx and the team. Canterbury on Wednesday was also a happy hunting ground with another three winners with Paret who ran a stunner on debut, Cocoexcel and Fortensky for Star Thoroughbreds. Capping another handy week for Star Thoroughbreds gallopers, they also celebrated a winner at Kembla on Saturday with Cedarwood. In addition to the Group One action tomorrow we are also excited to see our top team of stayers perform in the Gr.3 Kingston Town while the Shoot Out Mile at Randwick holds special significance if won by either Veladero or My Nordic Hero, being named in honour of the Huddy family s Shoot Out, who holds a special place in our hearts. We wish all of our connections the best of luck and a safe weekend! INSIDE THIS ISSUE WINNERs News & photos www.cwallerracing.com admin@cwallerracing.com +612 9760 5700
l CHRIS WALLER RACING - WINNERS THIS WEEK zumbelina 4yo M Stratum - Ruth s Secret by Noverre This talented daughter of Stratum returned from a spell with an impressive first up victory at Rosehill on Saturday over 1200m. Glyn Schofield took the mount with this talented mare carrying just 53.5kg and he rode a clever race as he settled her closer to the pace than expected with the track showing a leaders bias on the day. Zumbelina always travelled comfortably on the rail as the short priced favourite Tango Rain cut out the early sectionals. As they straightened for home Tango Rain angled off the fence and Schofield seized the initiative to come through towards the rail for a cosy success. On this evidence she looks in for another rewarding campaign this time around. wayanka 4yo G Encosta de Lago - Drop Anchor by At Talaq The son of Encosta De Lago had to be promoted from the runner up position after a successful protest from jockey Brenton Avdulla against first past the post Interlocuter over 1400M at Rosehill on Saturday. Avdulla had bided his time towards the rear of the field early on before weaving his way through the field in the home straight where his passage was interrupted by Interlocuter who laid in during the closing stages and with the margin being so close at the finish the stewards panel rightly determined that Wayanka should be awarded the win. quick defence 6yo G First Defence - Quickfire by Dubai Millennium This imported galloper has been a model of consistency since joining the stable and after a string of placings in his recent starts, he gained a well deserved victory at Rosehill on Saturday over 1800m. In form hoop Brenton Avdulla was on board and he switched the American bred son of First Defence off towards the rear early on before bringing him with a brilliant late burst down the outside to get up close to home for a gutsy success. This was his second victory since joining the stable to go with seven placings having done his early racing in the UK where he had been a maiden winner.
l fortensky 4yo G Love Conquers All - Love s Great by Choisir Apprentice jockey Lee Magorrian utilised his valuable 3kg claim at Canterbury on Wednesday guiding Fortensky to an all the way victory over 1550m. Magorrian bounced the son of Love Conquers All out smartly from a wide barrier and he controlled the race from the front. He travelled strongly through the run and kicked on in the straight. Stablemate Sambro ran home smartly late on to finish second but was never going to catch the winner in the Star Thoroughbred colours. cocoexcel 4yo M Exceed And Excel - Perfect Hostess by Dehere This talented mare returned from a spell with an impressive first up win at Canterbury on Wednesday over 1100m. Blake Shinn was in the saddle and he produced a perfect ride to settle her just behind the speed in the six runner field early on. Once they straightened for home Shinn angled into the clear towards the inside and this daughter of Exceed and Excel burst clear to hit the front close to home for a cosy success. She has now won three races from just nine starts. paret 3yo C Harbour Watch - Enduja by Encosta de Lago This son of Harbour Watch made a winning debut at Canterbury on Wednesday over 1250m under Glyn Schofield. Schofield settled him at the tail of the field well off the strong early pace and he was still in an unflattering position as they turned into the straight. Once angled to the outside of runners however, he let go with a brilliant turn of foot to score a soft win at the finish in what was a very impressive debut from this three year old colt. cedarwood 3yo G Your Song - Ceol Na Sraide by King s Theatre Racing in the Star Thoroughbred silks this son of Your Song bounced back from a disappointing debut run to score at Kembla Grange on Saturday over 1200m. Grant Buckley took the ride and had Cedarwood travelling strongly in third position early on before angling him into the clear in the home straight. Once he found the split between runners, Cedarwood showed plenty of determination to hold off all comers for a narrow win.
l Waller launches quintet at Kingston Town Stakes Champion trainer Chris Waller has a big team set for the Group 3 Kingston Town Stakes (2000m) at Randwick on Saturday and is confident that two gallopers in particular have their hooves on the till. Who Shot Thebarman, Libran and Kinema are all expected to improve off the run but it is Antonio Giuseppe and Life Less Ordinary that Waller holds high hopes for in the $150,000 event. After closing strongly last start in the Group II Chelmsford Stakes (1600m) behind superstar stablemate Winx, Waller is bursting with confidence about 2016 Metropolitan runner-up Antonio Giuseppe, but admits that he has some obstacles to overcome. "It's a shame he's drawn so wide because he is ready to win, this horse," Waller said. "He's got good form coming out of a Group II-mile race last start at weight-for-age. He's well suited by the set weights and penalties. "He's come up really well and is up to a more suitable distance. "He'll just need some luck from the gate." Tye Angland will have the job of steering from barrier 12; however, the other main chance for the stable Life Less Ordinary has drawn favourably in barrier five and finished just 1-3/4 lengths behind his stablemate in the Chelmsford. "Along with Antonio Guiseppe, he's our best chance in the race," Waller said. "He's drawn really well, his two runs back have been fantastic and his last start was in weight-for-age company. "The 2000m will suit. Saturday is a big race for him, it'll be telling us whether he is on track for some Group I targets later in the spring." Both Life Less Ordinary and Antonio Giuseppe hold nominations for the Epsom Handicap (1600m), The Metropolitan (2400m), the Caulfield Cup (2400m) and the Melbourne Cup (3200m). Antonio Giuseppe is $3.40 favourite with CrownBet for Saturday's Kingston Town stakes, narrowly ahead of Life Less Ordinary and Stephen Marsh's Chocante at $4. - Racenet.com.au video preview Click on the image to the left to watch this week s video update with plenty of valuable insights into our runners this weekend from Charlie and Chris! track update Royal Randwick Track Manager Navesh Ramdhani gives an update on track conditions ahead of Saturday s racing thanks to the ATC.
Surprise Winner for Waller Impresses Chris Waller's bloodstock agent Guy Mulcaster has a knack for finding good horses at the sales often overlooked by others and this impressive debut winner caught most by surprise. By the young stallion Harbour Watch (IRE), who shuttled to Emirates Park for two seasons before lack of interest curtailed his travels, three year-old colt Paret had trialled twice finishing sixth of nine on both occasions. Facing up to a field that included several promising well-bred colts with handy form in the 1250 metre maiden, Paret might have been thought to be going around for a look, but he had other ideas. With the main protagonists engaged in a stirring battle with a furlong to run, Paret surged home from back in the field to skirt around them and power clear untouched with Glyn Schofield in the saddle. It was an eye-catching win that will have Paret being thought of far more seriously when he steps out next. "He was way too good," Schofield said. "He has a lot of ability and that race was full of depth. He's showing a lot of promise and Chris and his team will have a lot of fun placing him." Stable representative Charlie Duckworth was well pleased with the colt, who has not been the easiest horse to train. "That was very impressive. With the wide gate we were always going to go back and get him to settle as he has a tendency to want to do everything in a rush," Duckworth said. "He won on the bridle which is good to see. "His work has been good, but we're always trying to switch him off, so he's never really been asked the question." It's fairly safe to say Paret can answer a lot of questions now his mind is on the job and he does hold an entry for the Group I MRC Caulfield Guineas. A $110,000 Magic Millions purchase for Mulcaster Bloodstock from the Tyreel Stud draft, Paret was bred by Qatar Bloodstock and is the second winner for Encosta de Lago mare Enduja, a half-sister to stakes-winners Cajarian, Very Sydney and to the dams of Group I winners Margot Did and Caradak. Paret was the second most expensive yearling from the first Australian crop of Harbour Watch, who stands at Tweenhills in the UK at a fee of 6,000 pounds. A son of Acclamation, Harbour Watch has made little impression in Australia with his first crop of now three year-olds, although he has sired an Australian bred stakeswinner in South Africa in Trojan Harbour, who is interestingly also from a daughter of Encosta de Lago. His Northern Hemisphere offspring are headed by French Group II winner Tis Marvellous. - Breednet.com.au Paret as a yearling.
WALLER UNFAZED BY RIVALS TACTICS AS WINX SHOOTS FOR 20TH STRAIGHT WIN Around the track it s racing s version of blasphemy. No one wants to say it out aloud not least of all when a microphone is shoved under one s face but the whispers are Josh Parr might have stumbled onto something. And the champ could have a chink, however slight or inconsequential. When you re racing Winx, that s about all you can hold on to. This spring Winx has been in races, not exhibitions. The perfect storm of a bone-dry and lightning-fast Randwick track, a temperamental mare in the stalls and a minor Hugh Bowman blunder when he fumbled the whip have made for great theatre. And even greater track talk. She hasn t lost and might not again but suddenly there s hope for others. And hasn t it been fun watching them try, not least of all Parr s daring Chelmsford Stakes ride on Red Excitement before a rematch in the George Main Stakes at Randwick on Saturday. Which begs the question: are rivals legitimately rolling up with new tactics because they think Winx can be beaten? I don t think there is anyone that purposely tears a race apart to make things hard, but you ve got to respect other jockeys, trainers and owners giving instructions to ride their horse to the best of their ability, Winx s trainer Chris Waller said. Everybody is trying to win and I respect that. It was just a little more noticeable last start, simple as that. What we are all learning is, regardless of the situation, that she is equally effective and that Winx is who she is. She is not unstoppable, but she is a very good racehorse.
Bowman gives the impression he cares for discussing tactics 48 hours out from a race like he does a hole in the head. It s not his style. But there s an extra layer to Winx s anticipated 20th straight win, a free-wheeling Red Excitement kept company by an equally free-striding Ecuador with the champion mare cuddled back in the field from barrier one and needing to make up ground again. Quickly. By his own admission, the scare was very real in the Chelmsford Stakes last time. Yet the deeper Winx gets into her history-making preparation the more his confidence is fuelled, regardless of whether his rivals have anything up their sleeve. I don t think they are reinventing the wheel to try and beat her, Bowman said. Red Excitement the other day, they rode the horse to its strengths. They didn t ride the horse to try to beat us. Everyone is out there to win, but I honestly don t think rival connections are trying to bring [about] her demise. I d be surprised if Red Excitement went as fast as he did last time. He may, but I d be surprised if he did. I presume Ecuador will go with Red Excitement and it will be up to one of those two to lead and it will be a pretty genuine pace. I just need to be in a position so she can finish the race off as we know she can. It s impossible for me to predict a pattern [now]. If I need to ride a race to suit the pattern of the day, then so be it, but I won t be trying to pre-empt anything like that on Thursday morning. The clock says she has been finishing them better than ever. Yet the rugged winter at Randwick even getting a nod from Waller who you suspect is desperate for a little bit of watering to cushion his mare s Cox Plate-bound legs has added new twists in each Winx chapter. On her birthday on Thursday her real one Waller told Bowman just don t go too quick on her in a brisk morning gallop. That s how fresh he feels the mare is. She ambled by barely 15 minutes after arguably the world s best sprinter, Chautauqua, breezed down the straight in preparation for his return to racing in the group 2 The Shorts. The race purse is just 50 times less than what he ll strive for in the $10 million Everest, yet co-trainer Michael Hawkes didn t need to be told what it meant to have Australia s two best horses racing just 40 minutes apart at Randwick. I look at her every morning and go, wow, what a tremendous race mare she is, Hawkes said. And no doubt Chris would look at Chautauqua the same. You treat them as individuals. Australia is very lucky to have two great horses and come Saturday they re both out again. Honestly, [Chautauqua] is just a freak. There s no other word to describe him. - Adam Pengilly, SMH WATCH winx s final hitout before her first gr.1 of the season Footage courtesy of the ATC.
HOOPS HAPPY TO HAVE PLAYED THEIR PART IN MAKING OF A SUPERSTAR Big-time jockeys, the big-race winners such as Jim Cassidy, they just know. During his glorious career, the now-retired Pumper legged himself over some of the best horses, winning two Melbourne Cups and 104 Group 1 races. Horsemen such as Cassidy know the battlers from the good ones, the winners from the also-rans often by the feel they get when they take them for a spin under the cover of darkness at trackwork or in an early race trial. No one was talking much about the two-year-old filly Cassidy was asked to ride in a 900m trial at Rosehill on May 12, 2014. It was just another young horse from trainer Chris Waller s rapidly expanding stable, sent to the racetrack for the first time. She was well-bred and a nice type, but there was no real buzz. They couldn t even spell her name, Cassidy recalled this week. He was talking about Winx, who finished fifth of nine runners that late autumn morning. I was riding at Waller s and they put me down to ride certain horses, and she was one I got first up, Cassidy said. She was a nice type she moved good, she felt good, she did everything right and was very professional from day one. I trialled her, I liked her, and my report back was that I wanted to ride her. Cassidy knew. Not that Winx would win 19 races in a row, 23 from 29 starts, and etch her name in racing folklore. But he knew there was something there. You only ask to ride the ones you think will win, he said. When Winx first headed to the races, after another trial, it was without great expectation. Despite Cassidy s early assessment and his request to be aboard, the Waller stable still didn t know what it had before Winx s debut in a winter Wednesday maiden at Warwick Farm in June 2014. Young Kiwi Jason Collett, an apprentice riding for Waller at the time, found himself with first crack at a race ride. I rode her in her first two starts, won them both. And looking back now, if you told me she was going to win two Cox Plates, I would have laughed, Collett said. I thought she had ability, but not to that extent. But someone must have thought a bit of her because there was a bit of money for her first race. She came in a fair bit. Someone knew something. And looking back, the way she did it was actually pretty impressive. She gave them a huge start, then picked them up and went right around them. She clearly had an engine. The second win was a Saturday race at Rosehill but Jason Collett after winning on Winx in June 2014.
not enough to convince Collett to stay aboard for start No.3. I thought she was good, but when it came to her third start, after she had a little break, I actually got off her, he said. I got offered a ride on a filly I rode in the Golden Slipper (Alpha Miss), then she (Winx) came out and won that third race. That was Hugh Bowman s first ride on her. Then he got suspended, and I got back on her, but First Seal beat her the next two starts. She was just a bit more mature than her at that stage. Those defeats were in black-type races first a Group 2, then the Group 1 Flight Stakes. Winx finished second both times. Victories continued to be in short supply for Winx in her third, and least successful, preparation. In five starts, she won once, with three jockey changes. Even the stable didn t think she was as good as she has turned out to be they didn t have that big an opinion of her. That s probably why I was able to get back on her, Collett said. He rode her twice, for a seventh and a fifth, both in Group 2 races. They were the worst results of her career. She just hadn t put it all together a bit. She was slow out of the barriers, the penny hadn t completely dropped yet, Collett said. Tommy Berry rode star sprinter Chautauqua in two of the most stunning wins of his career. Both were last-to-first surges - one in Hong Kong, one in Sydney. They were epic feats, but more about Berry just steering a superstar horse at the peak of its powers. He thought Winx had something. I rode her in a small field at Rosehill (in March 2015) and she was back at the tail of the field, came to the outside and picked them up within two bounds, Berry said. Tommy Berry on Winx in the Phar Lap Stakes in March 2015.
She gave me a feel straight away of a Group 1 horse. The way she quickened at the top of the straight when I pulled her out, she put everyone away in two strides, and I barely even pulled the stick on her. That s how Hugh rides her now. To say I thought she was going to be a superstar would be silly but she definitely felt like she was going to be around and winning for a while. But not in her next two starts. She got knocked down with Berry in the saddle again in the Group 1 Vinery Stud Stakes, finishing fifth. Then she ran second, as favourite in the ATC Oaks, when even Magic Man Joao Moreira couldn t get her over the line. She hasn t been beaten since. To start Winx s next campaign, just a month later, Waller sent her to Queensland. Jaws hit the ground at Winx s stunning win in the Sunshine Coast Guineas, in which she gobbled up the field in a last to first surge. Bowman then got on board for the Queensland Oaks, where she started in a now familiar position, as odds-on favourite. She not only won, but did so in a repeat of the Guineas win, displaying a turn of foot that left everyone watching in awe. I think she will make a very good 1600m horse later in her career, Waller said after the win. Adana Aperitif Charge Inherit Lean Mean Machine Tough Larry RECENTLY NAMED HORSES Name Those two storming victories were evidence of what was to come and the beginning of a winning sequence that should stretch to 20 in the George Main Stakes at Randwick on Saturday. Bowman will be on again, gunning for his 19th win on Winx. It s the sort of relationship, jockey and champion, that Cassidy said makes you want to get out of bed every morning. They don t come along very often so you have to make the most of it, Cassidy said. Berry has that sort of bond with Chautauqua, forever linked. But like Cassidy and Collett, he s happy he got to play a part in the Winx story too. If you spoke to the ordinary person they would probably think that Hugh has ridden her from the day she was born, Berry said from Hong Kong. But I ve got a photo of me on her cantering to the gates, and winning on her as well. I can tell my kids that I won on the superstar and that s very special. - Russell Gould, Herald Sun. Breeding Snitzel - Sabanci colt Pimms Time filly Zoustar - Queen of the Falls colt Pierro - In the Future colt Zoustar - She s Meaner colt Fast N Famous - Sequential Charm gelding
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upcoming STABLE RUNNERS Click here to go to the website for more information on our stable runners.
Quick Defence celebrations. Quick Defence celebrations. Thanks to Bradley Photographers, Ross Stevenson and darryl sherer for our weekly photos. www.bradleyphotos.com.au
Fortensky celebrations. Cedarwood celebrations. Thanks to Bradley Photographers, Ross Stevenson and darryl sherer for our weekly photos. www.bradleyphotos.com.au
The ATC team at Royal Randwick getting behind Winx! Candice and Cocoexcel. Liffy. Dan, Candice and Who Shot Thebarman after his work on Thursday. Geoff and Mary Grimish s colt out of the great mare Kisma, dam of Red Tracer, Counterattack and Shellscrape.
Dan and Performer. Raise An Army. In Times Of War.
Royal Descent s Swiss Ace colt is doing well at Westbury Stud in New Zealand, photos courtesy of Lesley Warwick. CAPTION COMPETITION - WIN A WINX CAP! Send your ideas for a caption for this photo of Quick Defence co-owners Christine Mrs Cookie Cook and Francis Cook with Brenton Avdulla after his win on him on Saturday and be in to win a Winx cap. Send answers to karen@ cwallerracing.com and the best as chosen by the legends in the office will be announced in next week s newsletter!