Based at Aramstone House in the village of Kings Caple, Herefordshire, in the West Midlands of England, Venetia Williams first took out a training licence, in her own right, in 1995, having previously understudied the likes of Martin Pipe and John Edwards, among others. As an amateur rider, it was be fair to say that she was not exactly blessed by good fortune. She was knocked unconscious when her mount, Marcolo, fell at Becher’s Brook in the 1989 Grand National and, on her first ride back, suffered a potentially fatal ‘hangman’s fracture’ to her second cervical vertebra in a novice hurdle at Worcester, which resulted in her retirement from the saddle.
However, since turning her hand to training, Williams, 63, has proved a model of consistency, saddling 50 winners or more in 18 of her 29 seasons, so far, with a career-best total of 90 winners, which she achieved in 2012/13. Of course, she also famously won the Grand National with 100/1 outsider Mon Mome in 2009, making her just the second female trainer – after the pioneering Jenny Pitman – to do so, but she has proved, over and over again, that she is no one-trick pony.
Venetia Williams is, in fact, the most successful female trainer in the history of National Hunt racing and, in 2023/24 so far, has been at least as prosperous as ever, if not more so. At the time of writing, since the official start of the National Hunt season, on May 1, 2023, she has saddled 27 winners from 102 runners, at a healthy strike rate of 27%, and amassed nearly £650,000 in prize money. She has also proved ‘punter friendly’, insofar as she is showing a level stakes profit of nearly £44.
Born on March 22, 1948, William ‘Bill’ O’Gorman is a former racehorse trainer, latterly of Seven Springs Stables, on the Hamilton Road in the Newmarket. After 30 years in the training ranks, O’Gorman effectively ‘retired’ in 1999, at which point he said, ‘I’ve been getting increasingly disenchanted with the direction that racing is taking, catering for bad horses at the expense of good ones.’ However, he retained his training licence to campaign just his own horse, the lowly-rated filly Be My Wish, who had her final outing in a claiming stakes race on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket on September 16, 2000. Reflecting on his decision to carry on, O’Gorman said, ‘I should have retired a long time ago. I probably wouldn’t have bothered if this filly wasn’t a pleasure to do anything with.’
Joseph Parr is, in fact, the grandson of former trainer Alan Bailey, who retired in January 2020, and, since February that year, has held a training licence in his own right at Frankland Lodge Stables on the Hamilton Road in Newmarket. On his retirement, Bailey sold nearby Cavendish Stables, where Parr had acted as his assistant for the last few years of his career, to James Tate and transferred some of his string the fledgling trainer at his new yard.
Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori has experienced his fair share of ups and downs during his 35-year riding career, but it would be fair to say that he has never been far from the headlines, for one reason or another. In December 2022, Dettori revealed his decision to retire at the end of the following season but, ten months later, changed his mind. Following scheduled visits to the United States, Australia and Hong Kong, for the Breeders’ Cup, Melbourne Cup Carnival and Hong Kong Mile, his intention is now to base himself, full-time, in Santa Anita, California, from the start of 2024, with a view to continuing his career Stateside.