Chris Waller and James McDonald ignite Godolphin's new era at Rosehill

Courier-Mail

5 days ago

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Premiership winners Chris Waller and James McDonald helped launch Godolphin's new era with a bang as Amusing gave the champion trainer his first winner for the 'Blue Army' at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday.
Godolphin has moved from a private to public training model for the new season with multiple trainers from Sydney and Melbourne taking over the powerhouse's racing stock from departing conditioner James Cummings.
Waller was one of many prominent recipients with Amusing the first horse to line up at the races for a new stable across Australia.
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McDonald made sure it was easy viewing for all involved as Amusing comfortably dispatched rivals to salute in the Benchmark 72 Handicap (1500m).
'It's certainly a great honour to be training for Godolphin, they've been our biggest competitor for so many years and we've watched them every week to see what they are doing, how we are performing against them and they've been the best yardstick,' Waller said.
'There success has been amazing, starting with Woodlands with the Inghams and Sheik Mohammed buying that operation and developing their own operation.
'What their team has done has been amazing. It's great for Australian racing and to be one of the nine or 10 trainers to be chosen to train for them is an honour to be considered good enough to train for them.'
'The mutual respect over the years has been fantastic for their trainers, staff and management and they've really been the benchmark.'
Waller watched the race with Hall of Famer Darren Beadman, who had spent his first full morning at the stable as a new member of Waller's staff.
Amusing is one of nine horses now with Waller with the leading conditioner also set to put the polish on a string of two-year-olds later in the season.
The classy daughter of Masar came to Waller in winning form after narrowly edging out her now stablemate Sister Daae over the same track and trip last month.
'We've taken over from a great operation and just seeing the horses coming into our system, a lot of the riders have just said 'wow',' Waller said.
'The young horses are so well educated and horses like Amusing have settled in really well.
'James has done a great job and their team and it really is an honour.
'I was nervous coming into the race just to make sure everything went well and things like that so it was a good relief.'
McDonald was happy to stay closest to the inside on Amusing ($2.80 favourite) and had hit the front 300m from home before bounding clear to score by 2¼ lengths from Narbold ($5) and the Nathan Doyle-trained Aroha Stone ($12).
McDonald has only just celebrating securing his seventh consecutive Sydney jockeys' premiership last season and ninth in total to move one away from George Moore's all-time record of 10 victories.
He needed one race to move back to the top of the pile in Sydney racing.
'It's great to get off to a winning start,' McDonald said.
'It always sucks going back to zero, especially after such a long season like it was but it's good to make the perfect start and here we go again.
'Onwards and upwards, I'm looking forward to this season, there's plenty to look forward to and it was good to kick off with a nice winner like that, especially being Godolphin's first runner with Chris.
'She's a filly with plenty to offer going forward I think. She's a lovely big scopy filly.'
Waller's 142-win metropolitan haul last season secured a remarkable 15th Sydney trainers' premiership in succession with the Rosehill conditioner the odds-on favourite to continue that reign in 2025/26.
'We take our Saturday racing so seriously and it was last Saturday the end of season and then it was straight into it, what can we do better and where can we improve,' Waller said.
'We did a few little things different and went through the runners yesterday, different to how we did before and trying to make the race day a little bit easier so we knew exactly what we were doing yesterday and what was handling tracks.
'Just being a little bit better prepared.'
Originally published as Godolphin's transition to public training begins with Amusing win for Chris Waller and James McDonald at Rosehill