Finding a Melbourne Cup winner a 70-year passion for Lloyd Williams

FINDING a Melbourne Cup winner has been a 70-year passion for Lloyd Williams. This week he is aiming for three in a row, and the comparisons to an AFL legend go a lot deeper than that.

Trainer Joseph O'Brien, part owner Lloyd Williams and jockey Corey Brown.

FOR a man who made his fortune in property development, the essence of Lloyd Williams’ Melbourne Cup obsession owes as much to AFL principles as corporate governance.

Williams’ unquenchable racing passion is littered with references to football terminology and methodology.

“I’m in the last quarter of my life,” he said. “In fact, not even that – I’m on the interchange bench.”

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When Williams, 78, speaks of his fixation for the Cup, it is set against the context of age and personal experience.

It is 70 years since the now annual compulsion to identify – and own – the Cup winner first took seed.

“Why do I like it?” Williams asked.

“I’m a Melburnian. I first saw a Melbourne Cup when I snuck into a hotel after school at the age of eight and that’s when it made such an impact on me.”

Since leaving Xavier College, Williams has exulted in a record six Cup victories – Just A Dash (1981), What A Nuisance (1985), Efficient (2007), Green Moon (2012), Almandin (2016) and Rekindling (2017).

In the 158-year history of the Cup, no owner has been more successful.

Lloyd Williams (centre) collects his sixth Melbourne Cup after Rekindling’s win last year.

Williams will have two runners on Tuesday – favourite Yucatan and Thecliffsofmoher, both prepared by master Irish horseman Aidan O’Brien.

The pair were identified months ago as likely Flemington types by Williams and his son Nick using a ranking system not unlike those applied at draft camp.

Having passed muster, they were duly bought, joining Team Williams.

According to Nick Williams, his father is consumed by an Alastair Clarkson-like ambition for success.

The AFL analogies abound.

There are systems and processes; a constantly evolving search for marginal gains and a habit of recruiting from proven areas, while always being prepared to innovate.

The only critical difference is the absence of a salary cap.

It is on the slopes of Mount Macedon, on the property they bought for $5.5 million in 2007, where the Williamses have hatched their biggest coups.

Liam Howley is the head trainer for Williams. As chief executive of the operation, Williams calls the shots.

Robbie Waterhouse, whose father-in-law Tom Smith remains a seminal influence on Williams, says the model – heavily criticised by some – makes perfect sense.

“Lloyd Williams is the best trainer of stayers in the world,” Waterhouse said. “He knows what the right horse is, and how to get them right on the right day.

“He has ideas which he is 100 per cent right with, and loves staying races.

“He is very smart at getting the horses there at the top of its game, and enjoys that challenge.”

George Frew (left) and Lloyd Williams with the 1981 Melbourne Cup, won by their horse Just a Dash.

Nick Williams describes his father as driven and passionate about the Cup. Winning it is an abiding obligation.

“His passion for the Melbourne Cup and trying to win it is stronger than ever,” Williams said.

“He really loves it.

“There’s no doubt as the race has got better, it’s become a bigger challenge to identify the right horses and so forth.

“And he really enjoys that part of it.

“It’s not the race. It’s the process of getting into the race that he really loves. The result always takes care of itself if you get the process right.

“My father is very big on structure and systems. We follow that with our picking of the horses, the way we train the horses at Macedon and that’s what drives the place forward.

“We really enjoy getting a plan right. We get plenty wrong, too.”

From the start of the northern hemisphere flat season, Lloyd and Nick Williams start their hunt for fresh stock.

It doesn’t always work, as they will both admit. It can be a devastatingly expensive exercise and there have been no shortage of missteps.

In practice, the process is time-consuming – but fulfilling.

“We just watch all the races,” Nick Williams says.

“We’d watch every three-year-old race in Europe and we have spreadsheets where we rank all the horses and list them all.

“We watch all the three-year-olds go through their grades and we assess them and rank them according to how we think about them.

“We update that every week and we do that once a week and work on the spreadsheet together, we have a combined sheet.

“Any of them we think would make it down here, we make approaches and do things and go from there.”

Lloyd Williams supervises track work at Mooney Valley.

Last season, Macedon Lodge – and partners, including Gerry Ryan and Michael Gudinski – had six runners in the Cup.

They were all secured under the Williams’ model.

Williams bought Rekindling for $120,000, a bargain in hindsight.

They also landed Melbourne Cup runner-up Johannes Vermeer and Zipping Classic winner The Taj Mahal.

The family once routinely bought dozens of Zabeel stock. Galileo then became central to Williams’ thirst for Cup glory.

Ironically, Williams most three most recent winners – Green Moon (Montjeu), Almandin (Monsun) and Rekindling (High Chapparal) – were neither of his preferred sires.

Nick Williams says the break in trend is no accident.

“We’ve got a system that never stops changing, never stops evolving,” he said.

“It goes on with the times.

“It’s a real challenge. This is one of the most difficult races in the world to win.

“All Group 1 races are hard to win.

“Everyone wants to win them. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of planning.”

Lloyd Williams and his son Nick after Almandin won the 2016 Melbourne Cup. Picture: David Caird

At Macedon, Williams senior controls the operation with some of the world’s finest horseflesh and horsemen at his disposal.

Steven King, Steven Arnold and Anthony Darmanin are entrusted with providing feedback to Williams, leaving Howley to the business of fitness and day-to-day matters.

The operation is designed not just for Melbourne Cup success, but the first Tuesday in November remains the primary goal.

Before Williams struck up a lethal partnership with Aidan and Joseph O’Brien, the family raced a string of quality gallopers including Mahogany, Fawkner, Reset and Efficient.

Asked to expand on his father’s racing intellect, Nick Williams said: “I could quote Anthony Cummings and say the same thing - my father has taught me everything I know but not everything he knows.

“That’s pretty much the case.

“He’s got 60 years experience in the game. You can’t short-cut that. It’s just the way it is.

“I learn off him every day of my life.”

Williams said Efficient is the best horse to race in the blue and white colours.

“He’s the most naturally talented horse we had,” Williams said.

“We could have taken him to the other side of the world, he could have won anything.

“But he was never sound after his three-year-old year. He was patched up, but at his top he was an extraordinary animal.

“It would be nice to find another one like him.”

Rest assured, the hunt is on.

Originally published as Finding a Melbourne Cup winner a 70-year passion for Lloyd Williams