Chris Waller is edging closer to a breakthrough premiership but he is also in sight of joining an elite list of Sydney trainers.
Tropicana Girl’s Canterbury win midweek took Waller’s season tally in Sydney to 90, just four shy of last season’s total when he finished second in the premiership behind Peter Snowden (98).
With two months of the season still to go, Waller is also fast closing in on a century of winners to join a select group.
Only Tommy Smith, Brian Mayfield-Smith, Gai Waterhouse and John Hawkes have exceeded 100 Sydney winners in a season as a trainer.
The late TJ Smith trained more than 100 winners in a Sydney season 20 times, Mayfield-Smith achieved the feat in 1987/88, Waterhouse has reached a century on eight occasions and Hawkes has done so seven times.
Waller won’t reach the milestone at Randwick on Saturday, but he could chip away at the figure with runners in seven of the eight races.
The premiership pacesetter rates The Verminator as the stable’s leading chance in the JR Turk Handicap (2000m) where the gelding will be joined by stablemates Contract Caterer, Patrician’s Glory and Be Invincible.
“Our best tomorrow I think is probably The Verminator because he’s there and pretty much proven,” Waller said.
“But expect improvement out of Contract Caterer and Foreteller as well tomorrow because they are handy horses.”
Waller scratched imported galloper Foreteller from a race in Brisbane to run in the Wilson Asset Management Handicap (1600m).
An unlucky seventh in the Listed Scone Cup last start, Foreteller is the $4.40 favourite for Saturday’s race.
“Foreteller is a hard horse to place and I wanted to try and win a race with him before he goes for a break,” the trainer said.
“Ideally it would be on a good track over 1800 metres but there’s just none of those options around.”
Waller currently leads Snowden by 15-1/2 wins and while reluctant to talk about the premiership just yet, he said his season had been “very good”.
“I’ve been very spoilt, every year has been a progressive year for me,” Waller said.
“Every year it just seems to get harder and harder but it’s certainly a great position to be in and it’s very satisfying knowing if you put the hard work in and you’ve got the team behind you, it’s amazing what you can achieve.”
The Rosehill trainer said it would be “very special” to go on and reach 100 winners but said it had not been a goal of his.
“I’ve learned not to have high expectations and not to set goals that you’re only going to be disappointed by if you work hard and don’t achieve them,” he said.
“All we do is work bloody hard all year round and try and make every race meeting a winning race meeting. That way you have a lot of good days through the season and not too many bad days.”
AAP TURF
