Te Akau Racing’s head trainer Mark Walker enjoyed a fruitful weekend on both sides of the Tasman, and he capped it in style when recording his 1500^th New Zealand victory courtesy of Avantaggia at Ellerslie on Monday.

Walker, who has trained in New Zealand, Singapore and Australia, now sits on 2269 career victories, and while he was pleased to bring up another milestone on Monday, he was quick to thank those that have supported him in his career, as well as his team at Te Akau’s three bases – Matamata, Cranbourne and Riccarton.

“It can’t be achieved without the support of so many great owners over the years, and obviously with Dave (Ellis, Te Akau principal) buying the best yearlings every year and having Karyn (Fenton-Ellis) syndicating them, it’s certainly not lost on me the quality of horses we get to work with and train at Te Akau,” Walker said.

“We’ve also had great support over the years from breeders and a lot of individual owners that continue sending horses our way to train.

“I’m very thankful to have had the opportunities that I’ve had over the years and started with Te Akau straight out of school. I’m still quite young (55) and plenty of life left in me, and I’m looking forward to training more winners for the owners.

“We’re very fortunate at Te Akau to have so many great people working for us. Sam (Bergerson, New Zealand co-trainer) and I have a great relationship and when I’m at the stables in Melbourne I know that he and Reece (Trumper, assistant trainer) are running the ship really well.

“I think we’ve had 18 wins in the last month in New Zealand, with a Group One among four stakes wins, and we’re tracking at a similar rate to when we won the premiership last year.

“We have just had our second Group One this month in Australia, so I’m very happy with that.

“At Riccarton, in Christchurch, our assistant trainer Hunter (Durrant) is doing a fantastic job for us, and in Melbourne we’ve got Ben Gleeson, our assistant trainer, who brings a wealth of experience and does an outstanding job.”