Top Aussie horse trainer’s invite to the Queen’s funeral and incredible relationship with her

Legendary Australian horse trainer Chris Waller has shared his experiences talking with Queen Elizabeth and her love for horses, racing and all things Australia.

Waller is most famous for being the trainer of Winx, the champion thoroughbred that won 33 consecutive races including 28 Group 1 events.

While Winx is a household name and one of the greatest race horses of all time, there was another thoroughbred in Waller’s stable that was linked to someone even more famous – Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II strokes one of her horses during the Royal Windsor Horse Show and riding Balmoral Fern, a 14-year-old Fell Pony, in Windsor Home Park

Chalk Stream was owned by the monarch and was named after the rare rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock in the UK.

Her majesty was very invested in the horse and would call Waller regularly to check up on its welfare and how its preparations were going.

It has been reported that Waller’s relationship with the Queen was so strong he is one of the privileged few Australians to score an invite to her funeral.

James McDonald talks to Chris Waller after riding Nature Strip in an exhibition gallop during Sydney Racing at Rosehill Gardens

Waller said nothing had been confirmed yet, but spoke of the Queen and her love for her Aussie-based horse Chalk Stream. 

‘She’s got a horse with us called Chalk Stream and when that horse would race I would get a request to give her majesty a call,’ Waller told 2GB.

‘She just loves her animals, loves her race horses and she is very caring and very curious about what’s going on with the horse and how they’re training, their little quirks and idiosyncrasies.

‘She wants to know everything.

‘It has been a pleasure to have been a small, small part of her latter racing years.’

Waller said Queen Elizabeth was just as invested with all of her horses and was a regular at UK stables right up until her health prevented her from doing so. 

‘I’ve spoken to a lot of the trainers in the UK in particular and she is a regular visitor at their stables,’ Waller said,

‘[When she called me] it is about the horse and how we train horses in Australia, questions around the droughts, the fires, the floods, she’s across everything.

‘She loves Australia, she loves her people and what they do, whether it be horses or it be dogs or other parts of the equestrian side of things.

‘She is obviously a regular rider herself, right up until the last couple of years at least.’

Queen Elizabeth II runs to Ascot in an event reserved for guests of Windsor Castle

While it is not yet confirmed, it is expected that Waller will be on of the Australian dignitaries invited to the Queen’s funeral.

Other Aussie guests will include Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon, wheelchair tennis legend Dylan Alcott, Governor-General David Hurley and his wife, Linda, and Australia’s Acting High Commissioner to the UK, Lynette Wood.