KEY POINTS:
Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up and knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve.
Whether you're a gazelle or a lion, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
Mark Walker wakes up long before the sun - at 3.00am every day.
And he's running.
The 36-year-old, admired as almost certainly the best big-team horse trainer this country has seen, would fit perfectly into that old African fable.
Put Mark Walker into almost any situation and he'd come out a winner.
He prepares the country's biggest team of mainly royally bred young horses, yet if you see him at Hastings today as he prepares Princess Coup for the $2 million Kelt Capital Stakes you would be forgiven for thinking he's heading to the corner store for a loaf of bread.
Never a sign of pressure.
Never a crack in the veneer.
That slightly leaning-forward walk, an earnest but unhurried look and a measured approach to all around him.
Surely this wonderful horseman, who seemingly does not make mistakes, must show pressure at times. There is a young family in the background as well.
Walker produced 41 horses, many of them untried, with more than 100 owners collectively, all with high expectations, at a Taupo barrier trial meeting.
You have to really think about what that means.
It's more than most minds can cope with.
So how does he do it? He can't really be that much of a freak of nature.
"Well," he says candidly, "it's really only the people that get very close to you that see the pressure.
"You have to have a good temperament to train a big team.
"There's no use throwing your toys out of the cot when things go wrong - that doesn't do anyone any good."
You get the impression Walker falls back on the acceptance of many of the world's finest athletes through the years ... you can only do your best.
If you have prepared well and given it your all, that's all you can do and the pressure has to end at that point.
"If you hand-pick your best team, from staff to farriers to vets and give it your best personally, that's all you can do."
So when the saddle goes on the $2.10 favourite for today's $2 million race, Mark Walker will willingly and deliberately hand over not only the reins of the bridle to Opie Bosson, but also the reins of pressure.
He knows they're in good hands.
"Opie and I have known each other a long time.
"We've both had our highs and our lows and we've ridden them together.
"Opie, Lance O'Sullivan and Noel Harris are the best riders that have stayed at home and ridden here."
If Princess Coup is desperately unlucky today, don't expect to see a crack in the demeanour then either.
Walker is used to those moments.
This writer was at Eagle Farm the day Distinctly Secret was a certainty beaten in the 2002 Queensland Derby.
Sorry, but the ride that day by a former New Zealand jockey to sit four wide without cover and finish fourth, was disgraceful.
Walker was so mortified by what he'd just seen he was literally speechless.
Literally. For more than 15 minutes.
"I was shattered. It was my birthday and at that stage I hadn't trained a group one winner.
"It's a lot different now."
But only in degrees.
Today Walker has 19 group ones to his name, but will admit to hitting rock bottom again when Damien Oliver took all the wrong options on Princess Coup and finished second to Sirmione in the A$1 million Australian Cup at Flemington in March.
But you wouldn't know that unless Walker told you himself.
"You get the horse to the point where she couldn't be any better and it's lost out on the track.
"Once again it comes back to temperament and not throwing the toys.
"You re-group and go again.
"You just have to cope."
And don't expect any histrionics if Walker achieves the magnificent feat of back-to-back Kelts today - he's as cool in triumph as he is in defeat.
Again, the emotions are there but well-concealed.
He attributes so much to Te Akau boss David Ellis.
"David and I linked up when I worked for him straight from school as a 17-year-old. We've had some great moments together.
"Any yearlings we buy and win good races with gives us a big thrill."
Like anyone else, the Melbourne Cup is top of the wish list.
"But if you can take horses over and win group one races in Australia beating the Gai Waterhouse, Lee Freedman and David Hayes it's a huge satisfaction because it's more difficult to do that from New Zealand."
Walker would have gone to sleep every night this week dreaming about the magnificent gallop Princess Coup produced between races at Matamata on Sunday.
Yes," he admits, "the mare couldn't possibly be any better for this race."
That's temperament and timing.
