'Bush kid' honoured for service to Darling Downs industry

By Jordan Gerrans

Ken Waller’s stellar riding career took him overseas and to the highest level of Group 1 glory but when he reflects on it all, he says he will always be a ‘bush kid at heart’.

The retired jockey and trainer was honoured late last month by the Toowoomba Turf Club with their annual Industry Contributor award at their end-of-season premiership function.

Waller calls the Sunshine Coast home these days and had a stint riding in Macau, but it was the Darling Downs where he plied his trade for much of his tenure in the industry.

He moved to the regional city as an enthusiastic 15-year-old all those decades ago aiming to build a career as a hoop.

Now 66 years of age and long retired from riding and training, Waller was chuffed to be handed the prestigious gong by the Toowoomba club.

While he was thrilled to be gifted the prize for his own accomplishments, he says the award gave him a greater self of accomplishment to be recognised alongside previous winners Barry Baldwin and Barry Squair.

Outside of his wife Debbie, Baldwin was the trainer that delivered Waller the most victories of his riding tenure.

Retired horseman Baldwin won the TTC Industry Contributor award last year while the revered Squair was celebrated back in 2022.

“They are real stalwarts of Queensland racing,” Waller said of Baldwin and Squair.

“It is probably as big an honour to be listed alongside them than get the award myself. Barry was an enormous supporter of mine from day one really.

“Barry Baldwin and Jim Atkins, and those blokes, they make you as a jockey – I don’t care how good you can ride – unless you are getting on the good horses from the top stables, you are never going to get anywhere.

“I was fortunate to be able to ride for both of them for a long time. That is the making or breaking of jockeys.”

TTC Chairman Jason Ward said Waller’s contribution to the industry on the Darling Downs deserved to be recognised.

The award is determined each year by a vote of the TTC Committee and was announced at the club’s racing industry awards in August.

“Ken was a very good jockey but more so an outstanding horseman,” Ward said.

“Based at Clifford Park for many years, Ken could more than hold his own in Brisbane when he rode there.

“When he retired from riding, he and his wife Debbie were successful trainers at Clifford Park and then later, well respected pre-trainers when they moved to a farm at Linthorpe.

“Ken also served briefly on the TTC Committee and was an apprentice mentor.

“He has given a lifetime to racing and is a well-deserved recipient of the TTC Industry Contributor award.”

Waller’s greatest achievement in the saddle was claiming the Group 1 Doomben 10,000 aboard former cult hero Chief De Beers back in 1998.

The hoop won one other black-type race in his career.

He rode the popular Chief De Beers on four occasions for two victories at his favoured Doomben surface.

Asked if the Group 1 Doomben 10,000 result was the pinnacle of his time as a rider, Waller offered this response.

“Without a doubt, by far it was the best win,” he said.

“But, for me, the country racing stands out when I look back on my career.

“The times where I rode five winners in a day and all those sorts of things in the bush, that is what means the most to me.

“Places like Mitchell, Roma and Injune, I had great success there and that is what I loved doing.

“I was only speaking to someone the other day who was referencing going to the Melbourne Cup and I told them I would prefer to go to the Injune Cup.”

The respected industry figure loves places like Mitchell, Roma and Injune because that is where he cut his teeth in the game.

He was born and bred at Goondiwindi before growing up at Drillham, which is just outside of Miles in the Western Downs region of Queensland.

Waller made the trek into the city of Toowoomba to forge his career as a hoop when he was a teenager back in 1974.

He had a stint in Macau alongside his close mate Baldwin, an experience he says he thoroughly adored, but Toowoomba was always his home.

A fall ended his career in the Asian city in his early 40s with around 1,300 winners on his resume.

Alongside Debbie, they then purchased a property at Southbrook where they trained their own horses while also running cattle.

Waller last took a horse to the races as a trainer in October of 2020.

“I travelled over the countryside to make a career and I made Toowoomba my base,” he said.

“To receive an honour like this, it is terrific.

“I look back on it all now, there has been a lot of things that have changed over the years in Toowoomba.

“It is good to look back on and it is even better to receive an award for all that work and effort that you put into the industry.”

In more recent times, Waller has joined the Queensland Racing Appeals Panel and keeps connected with the industry through it.

“It is great – I enjoy it a lot,” he said of his role on the panel.

“I really enjoy doing it.”

As well as Baldwin, Waller and Squair, the Toowoomba award has also been handed to the late Darryl Gollan and Pat O’Shea, among others, over the years.