Chris Lewis Photo by William Crabb
Champion reinsman Chris Lewis drove four winners at the Bunbury New Year's Eve meeting and the fourth of them was the appropriately named Im The Best which will go down as Lewis’s 5000th career winner.
Only the Victorian duo of Chris Alford and Gavin Lang have previously passed the 5000 wins milestone in Australia.
Lewis’s achievement is all the more remarkable in that he only has access to four meetings per week to compete at compared to the seven days per week schedule in Victoria and he has averaged more than 110 winners per season across 45 seasons as a reinsman.
The master reinsman seemed destined for a career with horses when he was born on the horse’s birthday of 1st August in 1955.
He drove his first winner as a 16yo on 11th January 1972 behind Classic Heir at Kapunda and his second winner at Globe Derby Park on 4th February 1972 with Carclew in the South Australian Guineas – it was Chris’s first feature race win.
It is worth noting that in 1972 there were no junior or novice drivers concessions and young drivers had to compete from the outset with senior drivers including in Chris’s case the likes of Dick Webster, Kevin Brook, Max Evans and Bill Shinn.
Chris became the youngest driver of an Inter Dominion winner when he was successful in his then home-town of Adelaide in the 1976 final behind Carclew which was trained by his father Allen. Carclew upset a massive betting plunge on the WA trained Pure Steel, which finished second.
Chris won a second Inter Dominion in 1986 in Brisbane with the legendary Western Australian pacer Village Kid.
Chris also finished second with Village Kid in the 1985 Inter Dominion held in Melbourne and won by fellow West Australian pacer Preux Chevalier.
Chris first drove at Gloucester Park on 11th June 1976 when he took part in the inaugural Australian Young Drivers Championship. While he didn’t win the title that year he did win a race that night behind the Ben Geersen trained Burgundy.
That was the first of 2577 Perth winners and his career total of 5000 winners includes two in Moscow and one in the USA.
His 2577 Perth winners have seen Chris win Nine Perth Driver’s Premierships and an unprecedented 33 successive Top Five finishes between the 1983/84 and 2015/16 seasons.
Chris became one of only four West Australians to win the national title when he beat Victorian ace Chris Alford to claim Australia’s Leading Driver Title (wins) in 1995 with an Australian Record tally of 211 winners.
He has driven a total of 52 Group One winners in races that include the Inter Dominion (SA & QLD), WA Pacing Cup, Fremantle Cup, WA Derby, WA Oaks, WA Golden Slipper Stakes, Australian Pacing Championship, M H Treuer Memorial (NSW), Australian Pacing Gold (Vic), WA Golden Nugget Championship , Bathurst Gold Tiara (NSW), NSW Miracle Mile.
In 2010 Chris was inducted into The West Australian Racing Industry Hall of Fame.
