It’s hard to imagine a more genial trainer than Ian Williams. He might also be a genius.
After all, few can boast saddling winners at both the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot. That achievement puts him in an elite club, along with such stars as Aidan O’Brien, Sir Michael Stoute, Dermot Weld, Jessica Harrington, Willie Mullins and Alan King.
When pressed, Williams, 53, will admit to jump racing being his real love, but recently it’s the flat side of his operation that has really flowered. He celebrated 42 winners on the level in the UK in 2021, the highlight being Reshoun’s 66/1 success for longtime owner Dr Marwan Koukash in the Ascot Stakes, the celebrated 2½-mile handicap he had also won two years earlier, with The Grand Visir.
“2021 was a great year on the flat,” he says. “We were fortunate enough to have a Royal Ascot winner with Reshoun, so that was a great day out.
“The horses have run really well. We’ve had some 2-year-olds this time, which is the first time we’ve really got stuck into them. We were very lucky to have Oneforthegutter, who won his maiden very nicely and then was placed in a Group 3 at Deauville. It’s been a good season for us. We’ve had better, but we could have had a lot worse.”
Williams trains at the state-of-the-art Dominion Stables in Alvechurch, Worcestershire. It’s owned by Irishman Patrick Kelly, who has built the facilities up over the past two decades. Worcestershire isn’t really known for being a racing hub, but being outside a major training centre is an advantage, says Williams. “I don’t have anyone looking over my shoulder and I can do my own thing.”
While outwardly the trainer seems to not take life too seriously – he’s dressed in a bright red Christmas jumper at the time of our visit on December 24 – there’s an underlying ambition and hunger to succeed.
Loyal owners
His loyal band of owners are also rewarded by a desire to maximise both prize money and fun, which are often combined in regular trips overseas.
At the moment, he has four horses in Dubai for the lucrative World Cup Carnival at Meydan, while 9-year-old Restorer is being primed to run on the frozen lake at St Moritz in Switzerland.
“We always like Dubai. We’ve had success there in the past and the owners enjoy going over,” says the trainer, who scored at Meydan in 2016 with Sir Maximilian. “The prize money is good, the racing is good and it’s a fun place to be in January and February.
“I was never there on the days that ‘Sir Max’ won, but I’ll be over there a few times this year and hopefully we can pick up some nice prize money.”
Of his 4-strong team, two, Cap Francais and Highland Dress, were purchased specifically with Dubai in mind.
‘Great dirt pedigree’
“Cap Francais was out there with Ed Walker last year and ran quite respectably on a couple of his starts,” he says. “He came from there with a small injury and that was what interested me when he went to the sale as I thought we could get over the injury. He’s had the whole summer off, so we’re looking forward to him a lot. We’ll stick with the mile-and-one, mile-and-two races, as in our opinion he’s not quite quick enough for the mile.
“[Highland Dress] has a great dirt pedigree [by Shamardal out of a Street Cry mare] and we bought him with that in mind, as dirt races can sometimes be slightly less competitive than the turf races. He’s run once for us and we were happy with that run and he’ll arrive in Dubai having had a break, having spent some time in the paddock during the summer.”
The final two members of the team are East Asia and Enemy, an exciting ex-Qatar Racing recruit bought at the sales in France. East Asia, somewhat unusually, returns to the UAE having left there as a maiden, then winning four races for Williams and earning a free Carnival flight back again.
Williams, who has an indoor school, equine pool, private gallops and acres of turnout at his yard, also makes use of technology to help with travelling horses. He may appear relaxed, but he’s meticulous in the preparation of his charges.
“We bought some lights, which basically keeps the summer season going a bit longer,” he says. “It helps the horses not to think it’s winter, so it keeps their coat a little bit better and helps prepare them for all the sunlight they’ll get in Dubai. We got them for when we sent Magic Circle to Australia a few years ago [unplaced in the 2018 Melbourne Cup] and now all the Dubai horses are in that same barn.”
The lights will not be needed for Restorer, who may perhaps need a spell near a freezer to prepare him for St Moritz, where the valuable ‘White Turf’ series is a glamorous adventure, albeit one that has had typically careful planning.
“We had a journey out there a few years ago,” says Williams. “I’m not sure about the complications of Covid etc, but if we can work through those and get him out there, then we will. We gave him a break and this is something I’ve had in mind from the summer. It will be good fun and it’s an option that we’d like to take up.”
Wonderful place
If that doesn’t keep him busy, there’s always the jumps. Williams has had 20 winners so far in the 2021-22 season, putting him on course to exceed last season’s total of 31. There’s one horse in particular that’s exciting him.
“We like Robelli, our novice hurdler; he’s progressing in the right way,” says the handler, whose Cheltenham Festival winner came in 2016 with Ballyalton in the Close Brothers Novices’ Chase. “There’s also a horse we had win at Ascot recently, Party Business. He surprised us that day and, if he carries on surprising us, then he might be good enough to go to Cheltenham.
“Cheltenham isn’t the be-all-and-end-all, but it’s a wonderful place to be and to have runners is wonderful; a winner would be wonderful.”
With that already on the CV, what other territories would Williams like to try to conquer?
“We haven’t done America, which would be nice, and I don’t know much about it, but, if we have something that’s good enough on the dirt, we might have a look one day,” he muses. “Maybe Oneforthegutter will progress nicely next season and then who knows where we might end up with him.”
That is typical Williams – always looking ahead to the next adventure. Having a horse in training with him would be a lot of fun, and you’ll win a few races along the way, too.