Dual code juggle a success for Walkers

Gippsland training combo Andrew and Simone Walker have hit a particularly sweet spot in balancing their harness racing and galloping training operation.

For the first time since moving into thoroughbreds nearly three years ago, the Pearcedale husband and wife team trained dual-code winners on consecutive days.

“It was a very good week, and it makes all the hard work worth it, when something like that happens,” Andrew said.

The couple trains between three and five gallopers and a similar number of standardbreds at any one time, as well as pre-training a few gallopers for other stables.

Their own thoroughbred Thunderpace surprised them with a win, ridden by Campbell Rawiller at Mornington last Thursday, and on Friday, the Walkers packed the hopples and headed to Melton with high hopes for their pacer Denis William (Art Major – Getya Wings Out (Mach Three).

With regular driver Simone on the sidelines, Denis William was handled by ever-reliable freelancer Michael Bellman, and endured a tough run to score narrowly in a slick time of 1:54.1 for the 1720 metre trip.

Andrew and Simone have been training full time together for eight years, but Andrew said the decision to move into the gallopers and pre-training was to add more sustainability to their operation.

“We love harness racing, that’s where our family interest has been and that’s what we enjoy, but the gallopers have helped us to be able to keep doing what we are doing at the level we want to do it,” Andrew said.

“I’m a builder by trade, and it was either go back to that, or find a way to generate some more income, and this is working out well for us,” he said.

The thoroughbred Thunderpace was bought online by the Walkers two years ago, who paid only $1700 for him, due to a known injury.

“He’d been with Gai Waterhouse, and she’d given him three starts including one win before he went amiss with a fetlock issue,” Andrew said.

“We rehabbed him, and he seems all good now. He’s been fantastic. We’ve had six winners all up, and he’s given us four wins and won about $100,000 in stakes.”

That’s not to play down the contribution of the Walkers’ team of pacers. From only 32 starters this season, the couple has had five wins, two seconds and four thirds, with their consistent performer Reclusive and emerging four-year-old Denis William leading the way.

“Denis William is going pretty well. He’s a different horse and the penny hasn’t really dropped with him,” Andrew said.

“Some days he is just there to have a look around and sometimes he’s there to race. He’s a big, tall horse and still growing, so we’re just letting him work through it and learn.”

Denis William is named after the couple’s fathers, the late Denis Walker and well-known industry identity Bill Walker.

Andrew said his interest in harness racing came from his dad Denis who used to take him to the Showgrounds trots and Moonee Valley every week.

“He had a friend Bernie Youngblood who had a great horse in the 1970s called Tara Meadow (the first two-minute standardbred in Victoria). Bernie had a stud farm, Tara Stud, at Melton and we’d spend a lot of time out there too.

“I got really involved in racing in the mid-1990s through Gavin Lang and going out to his place, helping out and getting into some ownerships. He taught me the ropes around the stables and trackwork.”

Andrew said the combination of harness racing and gallopers was working out well for the couple.

“We’ll do a load of joggers with both together, but we just take the gallopers off after 10 or 15 minutes,” he said.

“We need to go into the gallops track at Cranbourne for jump outs and fastwork days, but on jog days it all works in pretty well together.”

By Terry Gange for Harnesslink