Winning trot set to continue

Phil Williamson might have brought up 500 career training wins on Sunday, but he is still 19 wins short of the real target on his mind — 500 trotting wins.

The Oamaru trainer has forged his reputation around training trotters. In fact, of the 2769 starters Williamson has taken to the races since he first took out a licence to train in the 1992-93 season, 2566 of those have been trotters.

Harness racing meetings are comprised largely of pacing races, so Williamson generally has only one or two cracks at a win, making his achievement all the more remarkable. His victory with Pyramid Magic at Gore at Gore on Sunday took him to the 500-win mark — 481 of those wins coming in trotting races.

Do the maths on the figures above, and it means Williamson has trained 19 pacing winners from 203 starters over the years. But, bar one appearance from the galloping pacemaker Ask Yourself at Oamaru last season, a set of hopples at the Williamson Racing Stables is about as rare as John Key and Kim Dotcom sitting down for a cup of tea and a chinwag.

So it stands to reason that Williamson is more focused on the 500 trotting winners, which he hopes to rack up sometime this season.

“It’s a milestone that we’re pleased to do it. We’ve still got 19 to go [for the trotting mark],” he said.

Little did we know that they would become so successful in their own right. Phil Williamson

After stints working for horsemen like Dick Prendergast, Williamson first mixed in the horses with working at a tannery, but only became a public trainer for Harness Racing New Zealand licensing purposes from the 2006-07 season. “I haven’t had a professional licence all that long, but we’ve been able to rack up a few wins with a few good horses.”

Williamson’s training operation is largely a family affair. He is joined by wife Bev, sons Matthew and Brad and Matthew’s girlfriend Charlotte Purvis, while Steve Allen is also a valued member of staff.

Apart from the robust debates which go on throughout the day between Williamson and his two sons (oldest brother Nathan trains in Southland), Williamson is glad to have them around. “That’s the big thing,” he said. “When they were wee, we were dragging them around, and little did we know that they would become so successful in their own right.

“With a wee bit of help from their mother and father, they’ve been able to successfully get a start anyway — it’s over to them from here. But it is a pretty tough game to get ahead.”

So the 19 wins is the main focus for the season, as Williamson expects things to be a bit quieter than last year’s 58-win tally, with many horses getting “near their mark”.