There’s a new Ed Walker in town.

Okay, he’s not totally reinvented himself and the man who has become part of Flat racing’s furniture since he started having runners in 2010 is still shot through with some of the sport’s finest traditions, which is no surprise when he grew up near Kingsclere, where his late father Tim had shares in horses with Ian Balding.

Formative spells with Roger Charlton and Luca Cumani moulded the Lambourn-based Walker into who he is today.

“Possibly too much”, jokes the 41-year-old, every inch the classic figure of what one might deem a gentleman English trainer despite the presence of a smartwatch on his left wrist.

What has changed this term is his success with two-year-olds, who have provided him with 13 winners from 60 runners – a fine effort set against the 15 winners (from 104 runners) he achieved in the whole of 2022 and the eight (from 74) recorded two years earlier.

“I remember an interview with Sir Henry Cecil and him saying the three things you needed to be successful were the three Ps; patience, patience and more patience,” Walker says. “It’s harder to be patient now and there’s more pressure on training two-year-olds. I remember Luca once describing two-year-old racing as Junior Wimbledon – no-one cared about it!

“But it couldn’t be further from what it is now and even Aidan [O’Brien] has changed in that regard; there’s much more emphasis on producing good juveniles.”

It’s been a great season

With that, and a pep talk from bloodstock agent Ed Sackville, in mind, Walker set about restocking his squad this time last year.

“It’s been a great season,” he adds of a campaign that has seen Group glory for live Cheveley Park contender Celandine and admirable sprinter Makarova, as well as Listed strikes from Scenic and Almaqam, a horse his handler is sugar sweet on.

“The two-year-olds have been a real surprise and have contributed a lot, and hopefully they’re not done yet. Those juveniles would be the unfamiliar aspect of our season and not what we’re renowned for, but it’s been a conscious effort to change that.

“Ed Sackville is a great friend and ally and he’s said to me for a few years that we won’t attract big owners until we start having success with two-year-olds. I’m conscious Ralph Beckett and Andrew Balding’s careers seemed to leap forward when they started training better two-year-olds, even though they have always done well with three-year-olds and older horses.

“They probably wouldn’t have been renowned for two-year-olds, but they’ve gone to the next level and I’ve tried to replicate that.”

The brilliant Starman, Walker’s first Group 1 winner in the 2021 July Cup whose yearlings are up for grabs this autumn and could make a splash, showed his trainer’s finesse with speedier sorts, but do not expect the traditionalist – albeit a forward-thinking one – to ever change tack completely.

“We’ve done well with sprinters, but I’d love a good stayer,” he continues. “I was never going to be Brocklesby-ready with the two-year-olds because it doesn’t excite me. From a hunting, eventing background, I’m naturally drawn to a bigger, scopier horse, so I’ve had to go against my instincts to buy sharper types.”

A purchase of another kind was on Walker’s mind earlier in the year when he forked out for 67 boxes and more from former landlord Bjorn Nielsen at the picturesque Kingsdown Stables, on the foot of Lambourn’s gallops, the yard where 1974 Derby hero Snow Knight was housed.

An outlay of that nature was significant and perhaps risky for the father of Matilda, Rupert and Harry who was a nomad in Newmarket, where he moved four times, before settling in West Berkshire at the end of 2016.

It’s therefore handy that the rest of the string, along with the two-year-olds, have helped contribute to a healthy 54 winners, which puts the team in a sound position to challenge its personal-bests of 66 last year and in 2021, while the £1 million prize-money barrier has been broken for the fourth successive season.

“We’re quite well leveraged up now and, after we bought the yard, I did say to my wife Camilla it would just be our luck the horses would get sick, the owners would leave and we’d be left with a huge debt and empty yard,” he goes on. “Thank God, that wasn’t the case and it’s been the opposite, but it was terrifying when Bjorn put the yard up for sale. Not just for me, but my staff too, as they invested in the business and this was home for us all. It was tricky and stressful, and a big worry.”

An enthusiastic, willing and engaging subject, Walker is alive to the issues British racing faces, but refuses to play the role of doom-and-gloom merchant.

I don’t think racing is sold well enough

“There are challenges with costs and staffing, but I think the demand for horses is healthy,” he says, well aware that the prestigious Tattersalls yearling sales are just around the corner.

“The Racing Post love to doom-monger and there are major concerns with the future of the sport, but I think, as an industry, we need to believe more in our product and what we do is correct. We look after horses fantastically well and have a fascinating sport. I think racing is in decent nick; there are big and small owners coming into it.”

Some aspects of the sport cannot escape introspection, however.

“The complexity of racing makes it interesting, and it does need studying, but I don’t think that’s sold well enough,” reasons Walker, who also leases 11 additional boxes off Nielsen and has expanded by taking a foothold at former trainer Mikael Magnusson’s nearby premises.

“It’s almost belittled, which is wrong; when I was a kid, I found it fascinating working out which horses needed soft ground, for example.

“An owner of mine had a runner in a Group race for another trainer recently and I didn’t even know because you can’t follow it all. I was on the motorway to Haydock that day. I couldn’t keep up and I love it – so how do we attract people into the sport and tell them where to start?

“In Hong Kong, there are two meetings a week with all the time in the world to study form, but here it seems like it’s just like the slot machines equivalent – there’s too much of it.”

For Walker, that ‘it’ is centred on what he labels “bad racing”.

“It doesn’t do anything for the sport,” he continues. “It’s not interesting and isn’t good to bet on. Bad horses shouldn’t earn much money at all. If you’re a bad footballer, you play on a Sunday morning with your mates, if you’re a bad tennis player, you stop and make money doing something else. In racing, you want to reward achievement.”

The introduction of Premier racing this year was viewed as a vehicle to reward, but Walker longed for it to be better marketed and more radical, arguing it has done little to halt the export of talented horses abroad.

That transfer market is one he is au fait with having a number of Hong Kong clients.

“I’m doing my entries for the horses-in-training sale, and you’ve got a three-year-old rated 85 who could make a few hundred grand going abroad, so I can’t justify keeping it because it can’t win that here,” outlines Walker, wishing more money from that “bad racing” was pumped into the mid-tier.

“The owners probably don’t want to sell, but it’s probably better they do, although that’s been a massive frustration in my career. I normally advise selling because, when an offer comes in, owners’ expectations rise quite significantly – and the fall is bigger.

“I’m immensely grateful to my Hong Kong owners, the likes of Ken Lau, Fred Ma and the Siu family, who have been massive supporters and, dare I say, we wouldn’t be where we are now without them. I accept they have horses here to qualify them and sort out which ones are most suitable for Hong Kong, but if we could stop the English-based owners selling horses overseas by making it more appetising here, that would be a start.”

Jockey Club Racecourses, according to Walker, who also has top-level triumphs on his CV thanks to the classy Dreamloper and was a Royal Ascot winner again in June thanks to the talented English Oak in the Buckingham Palace Stakes, could play a bigger part in that by taking a more direct approach in helping smooth the disputes between bookmakers, horsemen and racecourses, while capping trainers’ strings – “I don’t think 250-, 300-box yards are good for the sport” – is another suggestion.

But don’t for a second be fooled into thinking Walker wants to become a full-time mouthpiece minded to ruffle the feathers of racing’s leaders.

“I’m passionate, not political,” he stresses. “I absolutely love what I do, but I worry about it a lot and get cross and frustrated when things aren’t being done properly or for the right reasons.

“If you were tasked with setting up horseracing on the moon, it’s the easiest thing to do – build it like Hong Kong. Yet here it’s so dysfunctional and tied up in knots. Will it ever get untangled? I don’t know.”

I wouldn’t go back to Newmarket for all the tea in China.

What Walker is certain of is his move to Lambourn and purchase of Kingsdown.

“Oh, I love it,” he says of the Valley of the Racehorse. “It’s the best thing we ever did, and this place is epic. I love the scenery and peace and quiet and wouldn’t go back to Newmarket for all the tea in China.”

He will soon be back there, temporarily at least, when Celandine contests the Cheveley Park Stakes, bidding to underline her trainer’s newfound deftness with juveniles.

“It will be a hot race, but she deserves to be there,” says the Radley graduate. “And she’s not the only one to excite me as I’m convinced Almaqam is a Group 1 horse and he’ll be bigger and stronger next year, but I just need to find the right race for him this season.

“English Oak and Makarova, who will be retired after running in the Abbaye, are worth noting among the older horses.

“Then, along with Celandine, we’ve Troia, Miss Tonnerre, Qilin Queen and
Saariselka as two-year-old fillies to look forward to. They’re stronger than the colts, who are big and backward, so while I’ve tried to reinvent myself with the two-year-olds, I’ve not changed the way I’ve trained the backward ones because I don’t want to mess them up by trying to make them two-year-olds. Hopefully we’ve still got some old Ed Walker horses coming through too.”

So, it’s not entirely out with the old and in with the new, despite the latter working so well.

‘She’s brilliant and fiercely ambitious’

He might not admit it easily, but Jamie Osborne is probably the biggest fan of his daughter Saffie, a rising force of the weighing room who could hit 100 winners in 2024.

In second place in the supporter stakes is Ed Walker, who quickly recognised the younger Osborne’s talents.

“We’ve supported her since she claimed 7lb,” he says. “We gave Saffie her first Group winners with Random Harvest and she did a great job on that horse.

“She’s a brilliant rider who is fiercely ambitious, which will stand her in good stead. She’s ridden more winners for us this year than anyone else by a long way – 20 against the ten Tom Marquand has ridden – so she’s a big part of the team and will remain so.”

Walker, who speaks fondly of Kieren Fallon leading a golden generation of jockeys in the 2000s, adds: “I suspect Saffie will get on better and better horses soon and tactically she’s very astute. People go on about jockeys being strong in a finish, but I think it’s more about balance and rhythm and that’s her.

“She’s very organised in a finish and keeps it smooth, nothing’s clunky, while her feedback is brilliant too and she’s great around the yard. That breakthrough horse will come, but then we won’t be able to use her!”