Voak Returns To Training With A Bang
Chris Voak. Photo Credit- Photography by Jodie Hallows
With over a 10-year break from training, Chris Voak made the decision just a few months ago to concentrate on his own team, with the 34-year-old returning to the winners ranks on Tuesday night with You Fly With Me NZ.
The four-year-old who was having his first start in WA after making his move over from NZ earlier in the year, made his way to the stables of Chris Voak, giving the pair their first wins respectively.
“My good mate and racing manager of our horses, Rick Giometti from Sydney fund him and brought him across,”
“Asha and I both liked his NZ runs, so we then syndicated the horse to good family, friends and new clients,”
“A lot of the connections involved in him are first time owners.” Voak said.
Voak hopes to race the gelding through the classes and see where he gets to, mentioning that the import is very immature and lightly raced for his age.
The 2020 Reinsman of the year has spent many years in the driving premiership leader board, but after an extended period of hardship with his driving, Voak reapplied for his trainers licence this year with Tuesday’s success hopefully the first of many in his new (yet old) venture.
“Lack of driving opportunities have forced me to train horses again. If I wanted to stay in the sport, I had no option but to train.”
Working alongside his wife Asha, the pair have eight horses in work currently, but Voak has confirmed that he has no plans of stepping back from driving, with driving his first priority in the game.
“It has been very unfortunate that over the past nine months, driving opportunities and quality of horses have dwindled drastically, which has directly affected my capacity to make a living solely from driving anymore.”
Voak is no stranger to success, with 1597 wins under his belt as a driving, accumulating over $15,000,000 for connections. With over 13000 race drives to date, Voak made his debut in the 2007/08 season, earning himself the nickname as the ‘Voak Train’ as well as being recognisably the man in the pink cart. Tuesday’s win brought up Voaks 22nd victory as a trainer, with one of his previous winners before this week back in December 2010 with Dilemmas Daughter at Gloucester Park.
Ashleigh Paikos