Premiership-winning Walker won’t follow rivals in closing the book on successful Singapore chapter
Expatriate New Zealand trainer to stay put in Asia as Turf Club struggles with impact of Covid
Three-time champion Singapore trainer Mark Walker says he has no plans to leave the Asian racing hub any time soon and instead will ride out the Covid-19-induced storm wreaking havoc with the local industry at a time when other high-profile participants have decided to move elsewhere.
Expatriate New Zealander Walker, who won his home country’s trainers’ premiership five times in seven years before embarking on a new challenge a decade ago, has reaffirmed his commitment to the besieged sport in Singapore.
Walker’s declaration follows the shock news that Victorian Cliff Brown would end his 13-year stint training in Asia in the coming months and that Lee Freedman would also return to Australia to open a stable at the Gold Coast after a successful three-year career in the small island nation.
Australian jockeys Michael Rodd, Daniel Moor, Glen Boss and Ben Thompson have all quit Singapore to return home in recent times, while on Thursday the current premiership leader, Brazilian jockey Ruan Maia, announced he was relocating to Hong Kong.
There is also speculation that prominent jockey Vlad Duric will imminently end his Singapore riding career and return to Melbourne, while last year chief steward Terry Bailey jumped ship to Hong Kong.
Yesterday, when speaking to ANZ Bloodstock News, Walker said despite the challenges facing the local industry he was gHarateful that racing was continuing even though meetings had been slashed to just once a week by the Singapore Turf Club.
“Racing has a proud history in Singapore and the government does so many things so well,” said Walker, who pointed out that the neighbouring Malaysian Racing Association had again been closed for two moinths as the country’s government grappled with the effects of the coronavirus.
“I believe it is the best-run government in the world, so once they get Covid under control I am pretty sure they will look at racing and put the right structures in place and hopefully get prize-money back to the levels they were when I first arrived here and it will get going again.
“I come from New Zealand and they’re still racing for $10,000 maidens, so I know how good the prize-money is compared to a lot of racing jurisdictions around the world, but Covid has had a big impact on many industries.
“We just have to tough it out and see where we end up.”
While Te Akau’s David Ellis and head Matamata trainer Jamie Richards are poring over the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale catalogue, of which a batch of new purchases are likely to eventually end up in Singapore, Walker harbours no immediate ambitions to return home to a country he dominated in the 2000s.
“As I say, a good friend of mine, (trainer) Paul O’Sullivan, said to me when I won my first trainers’ premiership in New Zealand, ‘Now, start thinking about making a cheque book instead of a scrapbook’,” he recalled.
“I was lucky enough to win five premierships at home and I have been lucky enough to win three in Singapore. Financially, Singapore has been very, very good to me, so I have no plans to leave in the short-term anyway.”
Fellow Kiwi trainer Donna Logan has also resolved to stay in Singapore despite the exodus of her peers due to the uncertainty of the industry.
“I am a fighter. I have come here to have a crack and I will stay until I do crack. I won’t give up and I intend to stay for as long as I can financially sustain it,” Logan told Radio TAB on Thursday.
“Singapore is a great place to live and the stake money here is still far superior to what I have at home.
“Australia is a bit different – Australia is flying and it has good stake-money – but it is very difficult to win races over there unless you have a client base to set up for my way of thinking and I am getting a bit long in the tooth to start all over again.
“I made a big decision to move here and I am going to stick with it.”
Brown yesterday also reiterated that family was the main reason he had made the decision to cut short his time training in Singapore.
“My wife Jo and our youngest son Felix are in Singapore but our two older kids India and Harvey are in Melbourne at university, so we haven’t seen them for nearly 12 months and when the government said there would be no international travel for 2021, that was a pretty big factor for Jo and I to go, ‘you know what, that’s enough’,” Brown told Radio TAB.
“The Turf Club only races once a week, and feature races have been cut, so that is another factor, but it all added up to the perfect storm where we thought, ‘you know what, we have had a great time here, but it is time to go home’.”
Many industry participants and observers put the blame for Singapore racing’s decline in recent years down to a lack of support from the government and the Turf Club’s bid to stem financial bloodletting as a result of the coronavirus led them to run just one meeting a week.
The lack of confidence from Singapore owners has been evident in recent months, particularly at the ready to run sales in Australia and New Zealand late last year and at the Magic Millions Gold Coast sale last week, with buyer activity almost non-existent.
But Walker is remaining positive about the industry’s future and is still operating a capacity 60-horse stable at Kranji Racecourse.
“The government’s handled Covid extremely well, so hopefully once the vaccine is rolled out and we can get crowds back to the races, turnover goes up, and the number of race meetings will increase,” he said.
“The way I look at it, there’s a lot more people doing it a lot tougher than we are around the world and we have just got to suck it up and get on with it and then see how we come out of it on the other side of it.”