Chris Lewis in the Australian colours
A win with the Natalie Duffy trained Idle Maple at Gloucester Park last night gave master reinsman and WA Racing Industry Hall Of Fame inductee Chris Lewis his 4497th winner and his 2296th winner in Perth.
Only Victorians Gavin Lang (5231) and Chris Alford (4944) have driven more winners in this country.
Lewis’s tally includes a double at the Hippodrome in Moscow and one winner in the USA for his trainer son Mark Lewis. His first winner came behind Classic Heir at Kapunda in South Australia as 16yo.
Classic Heir was trained by his father Allen Lewis giving Chris a somewhat unique record of having driven winners for his father, his son and his wife Debra.
He still holds the record as the youngest driver to win an Inter Dominion when his 51st winner was Carclew in the 1976 Championship at Globe Derby Park in Adelaide defeating the Western Australia champion Pure Steel which was driven by another WA Racing Hall of Fame inductee in Fred R Kersley.
He won a second Inter Dominion behind Village Kid in the 1986 Brisbane Championship and Village Kid provided 88 of Lewis’s remarkable tally.
Lewis’s first winner in Western Australia came at Gloucester Park behind the Ben Geersen trained Burgundy on 11th June 1976.
Lewis was in Perth that night as a representative of South Australia in the inaugural Australian Young Drivers Championship which was won by New South Wales representative Peter Morris behind Agile Jack.
Competing in that race was Gavin Lang while Lewis’s drove Shimimoto for trainer Bernie Cushing in what was to be the first of more than 25,000 drives in this State.
Lewis is the only Western Australian to drive more than 3000 winners and more than 2000 Perth winners and this season will be his 31st consecutive season in which he has finished in the top five drivers on the Perth Drivers Prempiership.
