Venetia Williams: 'The first time you almost stumble upon it, and when you strive for it again, that’s the difficult part'

L'Homme Presse is set to make his eagerly anticipated return to the track at Lingfield on Sunday. Ahead of his first run since the 2022 King George, we have republished this interview with his trainer Venetia Williams, which was first published exclusively for Racing Post Members' Club subscribers in December 2023.

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The fickle nature of racing journalism means I spend much of my working life talking to 'in-form' trainers, like the in-form Venetia Williams, which is fun, although the cruel reality is that it would be much easier talking to 'hopelessly out-of-form trainers'.

It's the first day of the Cheltenham December meeting, racing has long since finished and darkness has descended on the track. The last of the lurching, reeling hard-core of drinkers are making their noisy and indirect way towards the exits, but Venetia and I have climbed several sets of stairs to one of the course's inner sanctums, a plush bar meant only for the sport's high-rollers, to find a little peace and quiet for a reflective chat.

The trouble is, when you've had another three-winner day and are operating at a peachy 26 per cent strike-rate for the season, the chances of a quiet chat are slim.

"Sorry to interrupt," is the usual opening gambit, shortly before they interrupt. "Well done today, Venetia," is the obvious follow-up, with "any winners tomorrow?" inevitably following close behind. "Lots of runners," she ventures, "they've all got chances", and the inquirer moves on with a smile, unenlightened but pleased not to have missed the opportunity to ask.

Our high-level chat can resume, although by now the trainer is distracted by events on the big TV hanging on the wall. It is live coverage of the bloodstock sale being conducted barely 100 yards away, and another Irish point-to-pointer has just made £300,000 – roughly five times the cash needed to secure Williams' recent Betfair Chase winner Royale Pagaille five years ago.

"The only reason I’m sitting here talking to you is that I don’t have owners with the money to buy horses like that," she shrugs, with a resignation that long ago overcame disappointment. "I don’t even know where you find owners like that."

I point out to her that Royale Pagaille runs in the pink and green colours of an owner like that, in the shape of Rich Ricci, but she's having none of it.

"The only reason he went to Rich is that I'd offered him to every other owner I had and they all turned him down," she says, with a laugh that embraces the ironies involved. She'd paid a mere €70,000 for him on spec at the Arqana Autumn sale, but as a string of prospective owners turned their nose up at him, even 70,000 began to look rather expensive, before Ricci stepped up to the plate.

"I’d met him a few times and he’d said he’d like to have a horse with me if anything came up," she says. "But he turned down a couple we’d found in France so I almost gave up, and I only offered him Royale Pagaille because I'd had him for 13 months and I couldn’t bring myself to give him another year out in a field. To my amazement, Rich said he’d have him."

Teeton Mill with lad Martin Ledger and Venetia Williams after his win in the 1998 King George at KemptonCredit: Edward Whitaker

It was 25 years ago, in Williams' third season with a licence, that she sent Teeton Mill to Kempton to put the tin hat on a fruitful season that had already yielded wins in the Badger Beer Chase and the Hennessy, which in themselves were two gigantic steps up the ladder from the previous May's Horse and Hound Cup hunter-chase final at Stratford.

The nine-year-old had gone from point-to-point ace to chasing's hottest property in a matter of months since arriving at her Aramstone Stables in Herefordshire from Caroline Bailey's yard, and here he was standing on the brink of superstardom, yet for Williams it seemed simply a natural progression, given the seamless manner in which her career was escalating.

She had fired in winners at a 29 per cent strike-rate the previous two seasons and this term her earnings were about to skyrocket past the £600,000 mark, almost three times her previous best. It seemed as though all the fuss people had made about this being a tough old game was so much stuff and nonsense.

"When I look back on those early days, in my first six seasons I thought that was just how racing was," she recalls. "I thought what was happening to me was normal, so I didn't think too hard about it. I thought it was easy then. Not now."

It's certainly hard now to imagine the resolutely cautious Williams oozing confidence, but she might have been forgiven back then, given the way the cards were falling. 

Teeton Mill had been bought out of Bailey's yard by that notable judge, the late Simon Winstanley, founder of the Winning Line tipping operation, to run in the white and yellow colours of one of his small but select syndicates, and after a creditable second behind Double Thriller in a Cheltenham hunter chase in April, he found his feet, landed the Stratford prize under Williams' former secretary Shirley Vickery, and then began to reveal his full potential to a woman who had grown up in the hunting and point-to-pointing spheres and knew the time of day.

She first recalls with wonderment the unlikely circumstances that preceded the discovery of his mighty talent. This was a top-class pointer, but he had suffered a tendon injury in the early part of his career. A lesser judge than Winstanley might have passed him over completely, and the Saunders family were understandably happy to do business.

"When the owners were offered good money for their nine-year-old with fired legs they were happy to sell," recalls Williams, "but then I rode him in a piece of work in the autumn and he was hugely impressive going up our gallop, feeling really powerful.

"At the end of his last time up, he felt like he could gallop on to the next village, so I knew we had something on our hands and I tried to work out the most valuable handicap chase that he’d get into but which had a cap on ratings, and that was the Badger Beer."

Even back then, Williams had a reputation for keeping a lid firmly on her enthusiasm, which might explain the stunned reaction of her go-to jockey Norman Williamson's agent when she called to request her man's services.

"He’d normally ring me on Tuesday or Wednesday and weigh up Norman’s options for the weekend," she explains, "but I rang him on the Monday, before the race closed, and said, 'Just to let you know, I’ve entered Teeton Mill in the Badger Beer Chase and I strongly recommend that Norman goes to Wincanton'.

"I think he keeled over, although he didn’t tell me that at the time. He apparently got straight on the phone to Norman and said, 'You won’t believe what Venetia’s just said'. It wasn’t like me at all."

Teeton Mill and Norman Williamson ping an open ditch on their way to a famous victory in the 1998 HennessyCredit: Edward Whitaker

What was like Williams was that, then as now, she very much knew the time of day when it came to her horses. Teeton Mill confirmed his home promise by sluicing up in the Badger Beer, then followed up by making mincemeat of a typically strong Hennessy field, 15 lengths clear of Martin Pipe's Eudipe.

Hindsight suggests he was around 32lb ahead of the handicapper, but it was a performance that put him deep into the mix for an even bigger prize. The only problem was that Williams, for all that she had gained experience with top trainers around the world in her youth, had not yet dined at the top table.

"I had no idea what it took to win a race like that," she confesses. "Yes, I’d been assistant to John Edwards during the days of Pearlyman and Yahoo, but with most horses there’s only so much you can learn on the gallops, so I was a bit in the dark.

"The good thing is that I didn’t feel the pressure I’d feel now. Everything was a bonus at the time."

You might think the moment would be seared on the Williams memory, but precious little searing seems to have gone on that Boxing Day.

"It was very wet and they were all covered in mud," she recalls vaguely, "although the time wasn't that bad [according to the Racing Post website].

"I think the race fell apart a bit and there weren’t very many in the hunt in the last half-mile," which is true if not exhaustive.

To put a little more flesh on the bones, Imperial Call and Super Tactics led for the first dozen fences, with Teeton Mill tracking them, going sweetly. At the 14th, the horse who failed to complete in three of his first four points took the lead and drew steadily clear to win, as the form book says, "unchallenged", by six lengths from the David Nicholson-trained Escartefigue, with the 7-2 favourite See More Business having been pulled up.

It was a first Grade 1 success for Williams, but in its own strange way it did more to alert her to her limitations than it did to bolster her self-confidence.

"People say once they’ve won a big race all they want to do is win it again, and then they find out how much harder it is the second time," she ponders. "The first time you almost stumble upon it, and when you strive for it again, that’s the difficult part, at least for mere mortals, not necessarily for Paul Nicholls.

"So I'll keep trying. It’s been 25 years already, and it could be longer, but all you can do is keep doing your best."

Teeton Mill was something of a shooting star for Williams, burning brightly for less than a season, emerging from Kempton to win the Ascot Chase in February, then sadly slipping a tendon off his hock in the Gold Cup won by See More Business.

He eventually went back into training and showed he could still gallop, but then came a schooling session that left trainer and jockey shaking their heads and accepting that going back to Bailey's yard would be a fitting retirement plan. Which was where the unfinished King George quest began.

Venetia Williams after the 2009 Grand National triumph with Mon Mome

Not that it has been uppermost in the mind of a trainer who has long since learned it is best not to wait around in expectation. There was no sudden influx of new patrons after she won the 2009 Grand National with Mon Mome, as there had been none after Teeton Mill's King George, but she has ground out such slow years as there have been and now sits fifth in the trainers' table, referred to, for the moment at least, as the 'in-form Venetia Williams', although she won't be fooled by that.

"It’s going well and I’ve got the strongest team I’ve had in a long time, but for no real reason," she shrugs. "I’ve had no sudden influx of high-spending owners. The vast majority of my horses are ones I’ve bought on spec, mainly from the sales in France, and then set about trying to bully owners into having them, which is a similar path to the one I’ve always trodden.

"As for the King George, L’Homme Presse was going to be a strong second until he and Charlie [Deutsch] parted company last season, but he was the first real contender I’ve had in all those years."

More Sunday Reads:

Colin Tizzard: 'I had to have five pints before I could ask a girl to dance!' 

From the master trainers to a beaten 1-25 favourite: the record-breakers of 2023 

Fur coats, Bentleys and bus passes: meet the flamboyant former king of the betting jungle 

Adele Mulrennan: 'My heart was pounding and my mouth was dry - I was so nervous'

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