Singapore Update

The New Zealand Racing Desk interviewed Te Akau Singapore trainer Mark Walker this week during his current visit to New Zealand:

Mark Walker admits it took him a long time to get over his homesickness for New Zealand.
But he has found the best remedy is making plenty of Singaporean money.

Five-time New Zealand champion trainer Walker is approaching four years of training in Singapore and is clearly relishing his role there and the rich rewards that come with his success.

Back in Waikato this week to catch up with friends and colleagues and talk business and thoroughbreds with his Te Akau senior business partner David Ellis ahead of next week's Magic Millions Yearling Sales on the Gold Coast, Walker gave a candid insight into his involvement in Singapore racing and the transition into a foreign environment to begin with.

"I was homesick for a long time," Walker said. "When you are born and brought up on a farm and always surrounded by farms, the adjustment of living in Singapore was massive. I just got over it by trying to keep myself busy and reminding myself how lucky I was to be there."

Walker has quickly made his mark in Singapore, last year finishing second on the premiership, and while he hasn't reached those heights just yet this season - he currently sits in fifth spot - he says the stable is at a rebuilding stage and he has the goal of claiming the top spot on the trainers' ladder in the next few seasons.

Besides, he knows which side of his bread is buttered: premierships are a bonus - the chief focus is optimising the stable's earnings.

"Paul O'Sullivan always said to me 'you can either have a cheque book or a scrap book' and that's always stuck with me," Walker said.

"Maybe we'll win the premiership in the next couple of years but the focus has got to be on winning prize money for your owners."

Walker remains a great advocate for New Zealand racing but says the lucrative stakes in Singapore made it an attractive proposition to race a horse there.  He noted that two-year-olds raced for a minimum S$90,000 stake, while unraced three-year-olds raced for S$75,000, stakes New Zealand couldn't compete with.  No transport costs and a starters' rebate made the training costs even cheaper than New Zealand, he added.

"A few of our owners still take a bit of convincing to get their horse up there. But the money they earn there is mind boggling," Walker said.

"I had a winner last Friday that I'd say would be a Rating 75 horse - just a run-of-the-mill horse, Clutha Lad. He won a $60,000 race last Friday and has now won more than $140,000. He only cost $35,000 and the owners are having great fun.

"Affirmation is a seven-year-old now and every time he drops back to class five he wins again. He's won more than $300,000 and that's just from sheer consistency."

However, he said a drawback was constantly having to look over his shoulder with a rule of thumb that one Singapore-owned horse would be transferred from any stable a week, though it seemed a ready replacement from another stable was normally on hand to replace it.

Walker said his wife Julia and children Zavier (7) and Alexis (5) loved living in Singapore, with his daughter even fluent in Mandarin.

He said he kept a close eye on the New Zealand arm of the Te Akau operation and was delighted with the stable's progress under Matamata trainer Jason Bridgman.

"It's not easy on him because we do operate under a split system between the two countries but he's managed to maintain a terrific strike rate," Walker said.

On the state of New Zealand racing, Walker believed it was time for Government intervention to spark a rejuvenation in the sport, noting that state Government injections of cash had meant for a thriving racing scene in Melbourne and Sydney.

"John Key seems to be doing a pretty good job with the country, so you can't knock the bloke, but you'd love to see him doing something to reinvigorate racing here," Walker said.