IT'S COMING HOME FOR ED

Nick Townsend talks to Ed Walker, loving life in his beloved Lambourn

- Nick Townsend

Drive through Upper Lambourn's twists and turns into Maddle Road on any morning and you invariably encounter work-riders on their mounts all bearing the distinctive Ed Walker insignia.

Maybe it's just me, but there appears an ebullience about their bearing as they politely offer directions to Kingsdown Stables. If so, you can fully appreciate a sense of pride in their guv'nor.

If ever a man is currently at the top of his game it's this hitherto nomadic 41-year-old what you might deem an Ed-turner in terms of his progression since arriving here eight years ago.

Today, Walker trains more than 100 horses, and those work-riders are amongst a 40-strong workforce. In January, he finally introduced a state of permanence to the premises he took over when he purchased the yard from his landlord, owner-breeder Bjorn Nielsen.

It is a timely meeting with Walker, coming shortly after Makarova has yielded him a 22nd Group win in his 15 seasons as a licensed trainer. At the time of writing, he boasts a strike rate of 19per cent a figure mostly only comparable with such eminent figures as John and Thady Gosden and Charlie Appleby, who trains for Godolphin.

By nature, a sanguine, affable individual, you swiftly discover that Walker has a neat line in self-deprecation, a necessary quality for any aspiring empire-builder in this industry.

He readily turns acclamation of his current strike rate on its head. "You say we've got a great strike rate. That we're going at 19per cent. But that means that four out of five runs are disappointing. And we're going well! There are times when we've been going at seven per cent."