Staff Writer |
Chris Wall surveyed the scene and decided stepping away from horse training was the best decision he could make. After working in Newmarket since 1987, Wall saw the business change and get more difficult. During late 2022, Wall was faced with losing 11 horses to retirement or stud and knew getting the number back to his preferred 30 would be difficult.
The strength of the British bloodstock market made it tougher for smaller trainers, like Wall, to get more horses in. So Wall decided to step away.
But it would be a short exit. Four months later, Bahrain came calling.
Wall, 64, was appointed as the racing manager of KHK Racing, a Bahraini operation headed by Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, last April.
“Well, I’d had no tie-up with Bahrain prior to the appointment,” Wall said. “Other than for a couple of years before we packed up. After the horses in training sale, we used to look after some horses for three or four weeks before they shipped out to Bahrain.”
So Bahrain wasn’t on his mind for a career choice. While Wall’s memory is fuzzy on how it came about, Wall believed it was a mutual connection that led to him taking the job.
“I’m not quite sure how the KHK thing came about,” Wall said. “I think a friend of mine rang me up and said, ‘Would I be interested in doing a job like that?’ And I said, ‘I would, yes.’ Then I had a call from Sheikh Duaij and had an interview, and then I was appointed and took up my post in April.”
Wall always felt like a career in horse training was always something he was destined for. When Wall received his report card from school, his grades reflected his ambition in the classroom.
“I suppose when I was at school, I should have done better than I did, but I probably used to spend too much time reading the racing newspapers and not enough time doing my homework,” Wall said.
Once Wall moved to Newmarket in 1979, he would work toward staying in the field. Wall first studied under the tutelage of trainer Bruce Hobbs. He also worked for noted trainers Barry Hills, Sir Mark Prescott and Luca Cumani before getting his own opportunity to train in 1987.
The first winner Wall saddled was Romantic Prince at Haydock that year. Wall’s best-known horse is eight-time Group winner Premio Loco. Premio Loco earned £750,000 in prize money between 2006 and 2014. He also trained the winners of three Group One races, Donna Viola’s victory in the Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Santa Anita foremost among them.
The sum of Wall’s experience is what KHK hopes to capitalize on.
“I think I’ll just be able to bring that experience of training horses, of campaigning horses, not just in Britain, but in Europe, and when we have runners around the world,” Wall said. “So I can help give sort of advice on the best way forward with horses, which campaigns they should have.”
Serving as a mentor will also be an important part of the job for Wall.
“The trainers have their own mind on that, but if they want to bounce ideas off me, I feel I’m sufficiently experienced and have the gravitas to be able to help them in making a decision,” Wall said.
Wall doesn’t want to be a dictator in his new role. When it comes to interpersonal communication, Wall prefers to have a delicate touch.
For the team to be successful, Wall knows his role as racing manager will be important to keep the trainers and owner on the same page.
“What I’m trying to do is have a very soft touch on that,” Wall said. “I view my role as one of communication. Making sure that Sheikh Khaled has all the right information when entries are made, when plans are being discussed, where horses are in their training programme and that he knows what’s going on.”
Before Wall arrived, he got the feeling that the communication wasn’t strong from top to bottom.
“I think before my appointment, that was very much sort of an ad hoc thing,” Wall said. “And, he wasn’t always aware of what was happening. Communication is the main role, and that’s twofold because that works both ways. It’s also to communicate what Sheikh Khaled would like to do and the way he would like things to progress and make sure the trainers are aware of that.”
One of the top horses in the KHK stable, Elder Eldarov, was purchased before Wall came on board. However, Wall would like to try to maximize the five-year-old horse’s potential. Elder Eldarov has one Group 1 victory under his belt.
Overall, Elder Eldarov has brought back $1.1 million in prize money. During Elder Eldarov’s last race, Sept. 10 at Curragh, he came in first place by 3.5 lengths. Wall doesn’t anticipate that his schedule will be much different than last year.
“His programme will be fairly similar to the one that he had this year, I would think,” Wall said. “We found that his best distance is probably one mile, six furlongs, a mile and three quarters. He stays two miles, but I think he’s more effective at the shorter trip; he has a better finishing acceleration over one mile six than he does over two miles. But there’s a very limited programme of races over one mile, six furlongs. We actually only really have three races, which are the Yorkshire Cup in May.”
Wall said there will be some other opportunities for Eldar Eldarov in France and Ireland later in the summer as well. The race in France is set for July, while the Irish St. Leger will be in early September.
Wall won’t rule him out of running over other distances either.
“There’d be sort of three main targets, I think, for the season,” Wall said. “Don’t be surprised if you see him turn up somewhere over a mile and a half, just because, if we want to run him, we’d probably rather do that than run him two miles.”
The 2023 season has already been good to 2-year-old Vandeek. He has won four races and accrued more than $500,000 of prize money.
“He’s not your stereotypical sprinting two-year-old,” Wall said. “They’re usually sort of medium-sized, short-coupled, very muscular types of horses. He’s the very antithesis of that, really, and he’s quite tall, leggy, long and a bit narrow. But he has a lot of natural speed. And you’d have to think that, through the winter, as he grows from two to three years old, he’s going to get stronger and that hopefully, as he strengthens, he’ll improve, which all horses need to do.”
Wall said the plan is to keep Vandeek in sprinting.
“His season will probably start in May, most likely at Haydock in a Group 2 sprint there, the Sandy Lane Stakes”, Wall said.
“And then he’ll go to Royal Ascot for the Commonwealth Cup, which is his principal early season target. After that, he’ll have to mix it with the older horses.”
If everything progresses well from there, he will be doing some more Group 1 sprints like the July Cup, the Maurice de Gheest and the Sprint Cup at Haydock.
Wall said that 3-year-old Knight also has the potential to be a strong horse as well. Knight has flashed potential already, winning two flat turf races in seven runs. What Wall and his team will have to figure out is how to help Knight be in the right position to have success.
Knight did have a disappointing performance at the Greenham Stakes. The soft ground made things tough on Knight. A trip to France also had a rough end for Knight.
“They put him in the stalls,” Wall said. “He got very upset in the stalls. And he kicked and cut his leg badly, and he had to be withdrawn. But on top of that, we also discovered that he was retracting his testicles, and he was getting a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort, and that was what was causing him to get very upset. So obviously, he had to have the ultimate operation and be castrated, which took out a large chunk of the middle of the season for him.”
Wall has noticed that there are new challenges for him in his new role. With less hands-on work to do, Wall has to keep an ear to the ground and focus on making sure the machine is working well.
“Obviously, when you’re training, it’s full seven days a week,” Wall said. “You’ve got runners all the time. You’ve got things to deal with, with training your horses and managing your yard. My time I have, it’s not as busy, obviously, but still, I have to keep my finger on the pulse.”
Things are quieter now because the season has wound down. With the turf season finished, Wall is working on getting prepped for the year ahead.
Wall wants to stay engaged and enjoy a little more time with family, as well. The transition to management has been less shocking than when he stepped away from training and had no immediate plans.
“It kept my interest going,” Wall said. “It’s not been too much of a shock from stopping training and having nothing to do. It’s been able to keep my interest up and keep involved, and it’s nice to go to the races and not ultimately have to worry too much about if it doesn’t go right, why did it go wrong?”
By Dean McHugh