Sydney trainer Bjorn Baker back on the Gold Coast where he won the Magic Millions in 2014

SYDNEY trainer Bjorn Baker gets more excitement out of one day in racing than he would in a whole career in his former job as a pharmacist.

Bjorn Baker has reason to smile after his career switch. Photo: Chris Pavlich

TRAINER Bjorn Baker gets more excitement out of one day in racing than he did in a whole career in his former job as a pharmacist.

The presence of Baker on the Gold Coast – the scene of his triumphant Magic Millions 2YO Classic win with Unencumbered in 2014 – yesterday was proof his decision to forgo a career as a pharmacist at the age of 30 to pursue racing was the right one.

The Sydney trainer was on the Coast to add­ress owners and racing identities of Ontrack Racing Syndicates, an organisation for which he has trained horses and is eager to be involved with more.

Baker, 38, trains the ­Ontrack-owned Test The World, a three-year-old filly who won a Randwick trial in June at her first public ­appearance.

Baker was 30 when he took a punt at training and followed in the footsteps of successful father Murray, a master New Zealand horseman who has won more than a dozen Group 1 races in Australia.

They include Mongolian Khan, who won the Australian Derby in Sydney and the Caulfield Cup in Melbourne last year.

It was a tough decision for Baker but the best one he has made in his life.

“I get more excited in one race day than I would in a whole career in pharmacy,” Baker said.

“At the time it was a big risk because I had a stable income, steady career and I was really moving into the unknown.”

Trainer Bjorn Baker celebrates the win of Unencumbered in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic on the Gold Coast in 2014. Photo: Adam Head

Baker co-trained with his father in New Zealand for a while before he moved to Sydney at the start of the 2011-12 season.

“I learnt more in my first year in Australia when I was on my own than I probably did in some ways ... in the last 10 years so it was exciting,” Baker said of his move to Warwick Farm.

“It was tough. I had pretty slow horses so you get mentally tough and you have got to cop it.

“You have got to be a good loser and winner. I don’t think I’m either.

“It’s hard work and very much a lifestyle so it’s not something you can go in and say, ‘I’m going to be a horse trainer and work 40 hours a week and make it work’.

“It’s not that sort of industry. It is all self-consuming, extremely time consuming but it’s a lot of fun.”

Baker is keen to chase a second Magic Millions success on the Coast in January.

“I have got some nice horses. I have got some really nice unexposed horses that are probably a month or two from coming through, so I’m looking forward to them,” he said.

Ontrack Racing Syndicates’ most successful horse has been 2015 VRC Newmarket Handicap winner Brazen Beau, who was bought for $70,000 and sold to global giant Godolphin for an undisclosed sum but believed to be more than $10 million.