Run The Numbers – 6602 days – Chris Waller’s astonishing 200

Champion trainer Chris Waller has won a Group 1 race once every 33 days on average for the past 18 years, since his first victory with Triple Honour in the Doncaster in 2008.

It’s hard to fathom a trainer celebrating elite success almost more often than he turns over the calendar, and the scary thing is that he is still gathering pace.

His first 50 Group 1 winners took 2717 days, while his second 50, highlighted by the Winx era, took 1288 days. He slowed down slightly for his third 50, which covered 1590 days, but has since hit the accelerator.

It has been 1009 days from his 150th to his 200th Group 1 winner. That is a Group 1 winner every 20 days! We are 145 days into 2026, and he has 14 Group 1 winners, or one every 10 days.

The two other men who have had over 200 Group 1 winners, Tommy Smith and Bart Cummings, trained in an era with far fewer Group 1 races. Both are credited with 246 elite victories.

Smith took 12,972 days from his first Group 1 win until his 200th, while for Cummings the interval was remarkably similar at 12,986 days. For Waller, it has been 6602 days.

It seems a matter of when, not if, Waller will surpass the record of those two legends. At his career run rate of one every 33 days, we could expect that to be in August 2030 but based on the rate over his past 50, it is more likely to be in November 2028. Circle that moment in your diary.

To accumulate Group 1 winners at that pace, you need champions and a constant supply of them. Winx will long stand alone with her 25 Group 1 wins, but Waller has had multiple champions since she retired in 2019. Verry Elleegant won 11 Group 1 races as did Via Sistina for him, while Nature Strip had nine

Then there are the horses such as The Autumn Sun and Boban, who won five each, and Preferment, Joliestar, Fangirl and Danleigh, who won four.

All in all, he has won Group 1 races with 91 individual horses. Of those 91, 40 have been geldings, 29 have been fillies or mares and 22 colts or entires. However, the total number of top-flight wins from his fillies and mares, 94, eclipses the 65 won by his geldings.

He has won 61 of Australia’s 76 Group 1 races. It is easier to list the ones he hasn’t won. They are The Everest (at Group 1 level), the All-Star Mile, the Winterbottom, the Goodwood, South Australian Derby, Robert Sangster, the Stradbroke Handicap, Australian Guineas, Futurity Stakes, Blue Diamond, Oakleigh Plate, CF Orr, VRC Oaks, Toorak Handicap and the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes.

Waller’s most successful Group 1 race is the Chipping Norton/Verry Eleegant, which he has won 12 times, followed by the George Main/King Charles with nine, the George Ryder with eight, and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Cox Plate, Doncaster Mile and Turnbull Stakes with six apiece.

His lone Group 1 international win came via Nature Strip in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot. That means his next top-level win will be his 200th in Australia, another milestone.   

Randwick has provided 41.5 per cent of his Group 1 wins, or 83, while Flemington is the second most successful on 35, followed by his home track, Rosehill, with 32.

In all, there have been 13 different tracks where he has won a Group 1 race, including Warwick Farm, which no longer hosts top-level racing, but where Waller won four editions of the Chipping Norton, and Newcastle.   

In terms of distance, 31 per cent of his wins have been over 1600 metres, 17.5 per cent over 2000 metres and 10.5 per cent over 2400 metres. Waller’s dominance of the middle distance and staying ranks is evident by the fact that 142 of his 200 Group 1 wins have been in races over 1600 metres or further.