Chris Waller grew up in New Zealand’s North Island about an hour or so north of Wellington in Foxton, a small horse racing town of about 3,000 people. Waller hit Sydney from New Zealand in the year 2000 with two maxed-out credit cards, no cash, his childhood sweetheart and a few empty horse boxes at Rosehill.
“It shows you can do it; it doesn’t matter what your bank balance is or where you’ve come from or what your experience is, anybody can do anything in life,” – Chris Waller
Chris brought ‘Party Belle’ to Sydney the same year and won a maiden at Wyong. He returned with her a year later to win three in town.
“Like anything, you are only as good as the staff you build up around you,” – Chris Waller.
The Inghams turned to Chris following the sale of their racing operation to the Sheik Mohammed’s Darley stable. The support from the Ingham’s helped to build the foundation of the Chris Waller Racing stable & something to this day that Chris is forever grateful for.
‘Triple Honour’ was Chris’s first Group 1 winner in 2008 – winning the Doncaster & from that point the business has expanded from a humble base at Rosehill to now having stables in all major racing cities along Australia’s eastern seaboard.
Rosehill is headquarters – with bases in Flemington, Warwick Farm & now the new Gold Coast (Qld) expansion allows horses to be trained in locations of all major racing carnivals in Australia.
“I attribute our success to date to the infrastructure put in place leading up to these last couple of years.” – Chris Waller
There is a lot of financial benefits of racing in Australia – with $100,000 races every Saturday in metropolitan areas. The strength of the racing industry down under will continue to drive returns to owners in years to come.
KEY FACTS
– 9 Metropolitan Premierships in NSW
– 172 Metropolitan Winners for 2018/19 Season
– 108 Group 1 Winners
– WINX – horse of the generation, winning 4 consecutive Cox Plates.
“When you come from nothing, and never had nothing, the only thing that digs you out of the hole is hard work.“ Chris Waller
