‘I didn’t want to run her’: Waller’s startling admission over Verry Elleegant’s Cup triumph

An emotional Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Chris Waller has admitted he didn’t want to run Verry Elleegant in the big race and agonised over the decision until minutes before the acceptance deadline on Saturday.

Australia’s premier trainer, who stayed in Sydney while other NSW-based trainers and even Ireland’s Joseph O’Brien made last-minute dashes to be at Flemington for the Cup on Tuesday, watched the race from his family lounge room in north-western Sydney.

But it could have been a very different spectacle, with Waller revealing he had waited until the last possible moment before confirming Verry Elleegant’s place in the field on Saturday.

“I just didn’t want to run her,” a tearful Waller told the Herald and The Age. “But I couldn’t find a reason not to - it’s a simple as that. I think it was 3.30pm on Saturday [we had to make the call].”

Australia’s biggest trainer, the son of a New Zealand dairy farmer who has turned into a relentless winning machine, broke down when Verry Elleegant sailed past red-hot favourite Incentivise to win the $8 million handicap by a widening four lengths.

But few knew how close Verry Elleegant was to not running in the race for a second time (she was a fast-finishing seventh last year) after she finished third in the Cox Plate a week and a half ago.

Verry Elleegant charges to victory under James McDonald.Credit: Getty

Waller, a meticulous planner who is never one to overtax his horses, had primarily aimed Verry Elleegant’s spring at the Cox Plate. He even kept her owners guessing until Saturday afternoon over whether the reigning Australian Horse of the Year would run in the Cup.

“Chris had us on edge all week,” laughed part-owner Ozzie Kheir. “And I’m so glad Chris finished with the view to run Verry Elleegant. Now the Melbourne Cup is the result.”

Waller, who relied on now wife Steph’s modelling career to get by when he first arrived in Australia as a small-time horse trainer, has long dreamed about winning the race. He had posters of legendary Cup jockeys such as Jim Cassidy on his bedroom wall as a kid when living in the New Zealand town of Foxton.

‘I just didn’t want to run he. But I couldn’t find a reason not to - it’s a simple as that.’

Chris Waller

Yet he couldn’t have imagined the circumstances in which he would watch his first Melbourne Cup triumph.

Under Racing NSW protocols, Waller would have had to isolate for five days upon returning from Melbourne, a guideline clearly hard to manage for a man who has built a racing empire with hundreds of horses to worry about every day.

Instead, Waller watched his first Melbourne Cup triumph from the lounge room of his family home with Steph and kids Tyler and Nikita, who he said were just as excited as he was for Verry Elleegant’s historic win.

Minutes before the race, Steph had put on a load of washing. Tyler turned to her and said, “Verry Elleegant looks the best one in the yard”. Waller had been so calm he decided to have a shower just before the race.

“It’s probably as good as it gets,” Waller said. “The kids were pretty excited, they were more excited than me. It hasn’t sunk in.”

The Melbourne Cup had always been the race which had eluded Waller, and perhaps his best chance was Preferment, who was knocked sideways by dramatic interference in the home straight from Frankie Dettori’s Max Dynamite in 2015.

It was the same year Michelle Payne created history on Prince Of Penzance by becoming the first female jockey to win the race and the man who had already come to dominate Australian racing was left feeling deflated.

But his day was always going to come, and it came in strange times, at the expense of Queensland cult hero Incentivise, named because of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s penchant for using the phrase during his many COVID-19 addresses to the nation.

Verry Elleegant led home Waller’s four runners in this year’s race, which included Selino (eighth), Great House (13th) and Ocean Billy (last).

But for the 48-year-old, Cup day started like any other normal one, attending trackwork on Tuesday and even meeting media requests from the Rosehill trainers’ hut.

When Verry Elleegant won last year’s Caulfield Cup, Waller was also in Sydney, deciding to stay at home for the $15 million The Everest. Just over a fortnight ago, he won this year’s Everest with Nature Strip and was again absent as Verry Elleegant shone in Melbourne’s Spring.

“I really wish Chris could have been here,” Waller’s Melbourne assistant Jo Taylor told Channel Ten. “COVID has been a cruel thing to him. I would say he’s just as elated just by having those victories and by watching [jockey James McDonald’s] reaction, I think it just shows you how special this race is.”

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