By Bren O'Brien
Fresh from a record-breaking Saturday which featured an incredible eight winners, including four Group 1s across Randwick and Flemington, master trainer Chris Waller is plotting a raid on Australia's richest race, The Everest.
Waller set a new mark with a Group 1 treble at Randwick thanks to Funstar (Adelaide {Ire}) in the Flight S., Kolding (NZ) (Ocean Park {NZ}) in the Epsom H. and Come Play with Me (Blackfriars) in the Metropolitan H. as well as Kings Will Dream's (Ire) (Casamento {Ire}) victory in the G1 Turnbull S. at Flemington.
It was a day that not even Waller, the dominant trainer in Australia for much of the last decade, said he could have expected.
"It's just one of those things, you can’t plan and you can't expect to happen. All of a sudden, it starts with one, the 2-year-old race and you just take it race by race and it kept unfolding like dream. You can never expect that," he told Sky Racing Radio.
"You just take it race by race and it kept unfolding like dream. You can never expect that." - Chris Waller
One of only three races at Randwick he didn’t win on Saturday was the G2 Premiere S., which was won by Team Hawkes' Brutal (NZ) (O'Reilly {NZ}), a race which again reshaped The Everest. Among the beaten brigade was third-placed Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt), who holds a slot, as well as Osborne Bulls (Street Cry {Ire}), who pulled up lame in his first start of the campaign.
Waller Racing is a slotholder for the race, but the man himself has never trained a horse in The Everest. That will likely happen this year, with Arcadia Queen (Pierro) to run in The Star's slot, although his own slot was vacated when owner Bob Peters decided to retire Waller's other prospect Enticing Star (Testa Rossa).
Waller's own spot is now vacant with Enticing Star's retirement
The general consensus was that one of Waller's other options, Nature Strip (Nicconi) or Yes Yes Yes (Rubick), would assume the slot, but the trainer himself is not committed to keeping it 'in house'.
"We will have to make a decision next week. We'll sit down tomorrow and start working out which horse it might be. Obviously Godolphin have a few there we’d be keen to have a look at. Brutal jumps into contention and it will be interesting to see what they want to do with him," he said.
"Brutal jumps into contention and it will be interesting to see what they want to do with him." - Chris Waller
"There is a slight consideration on Yes Yes Yes, after his great run in the Golden Rose last week and even Nature Strip is there as the war horse if we were not to take one of those other horses.
"There's a few decisions to make. We don’t just want to have a runner. We want to be winning the race."
A victory in The Everest, as either trainer or slotholder, or possibly both, would be an incredible way to top of a year that has seen the superstar mare Winx (Street Cry {Ire}) retire, but the stable barely miss a beat.
When Funstar won a mid-week race at Canterbury in June, Waller admitted it was the best he had felt in the couple of months after Winx's retirement and he continues to draw parallels between the emerging filly and the champion.
Funstar won exactly the same race at Winx in her maiden
"She won exactly the same race at Winx in her maiden and almost identically, her second race on a Saturday. From there she won a Tea Rose, which was a similar thing to what Winx did, through that, you get that feeling back," he said.
"You follow things that work and you get that confidence up and you hope that things work out on the day."
Waller also spoke to RSN and said that pattern is likely to continue forward, with the spelling paddock beckoning.
"I think the making of Winx was her spelling after running second in the Flight S.," he said.
"It always plays into my mind, does she need to do anything else? No she doesn’t. What did we do with Winx? We spelled her and look what happened. It's pretty hard to change things when you have that experience."
