Horse racing: Retiring trainers Peter and Dawn Williams going out on top; mantle passes to Barb Kennedy

Peter and Dawn Williams are retiring after years training horses. Photo / Supplied

Peter Williams never wants to be an old man training a team of battlers.

And he never will.

Williams and his wife Dawn are going out on top, surprisingly stepping away from training at the end of this month after one of the best seasons of their careers.

“It is time. I am coming up to 70 and we want to go out while we are training well,” Williams told the Herald.

“We have had a great season and I read the other day our horses have won an average of over $16,000 per start this season, which is amazing.

“But I don’t want to train forever and be working a team of average horses when I am 80.

“So Dawn and I are retiring and we are going to move back down to Canterbury and then work out what we do with ourselves.”

They retire after a stellar season, having won the first $1 million Elsdon Park Aotearoa Classic on Karaka Millions night with Desert Lightning, who earlier won the Group 1 TAB Classic at Trentham.

Away from their stable star their team is loved by punters but feared by rivals and bookies as the famous Williams’ dedication to detail has never wavered.

It has been the same since they before they brought Sea Swift north from their then Ashburton base to win the 1998 Auckland Cup, a win that helped them buy a Mid Canterbury farm.

Soon after the couple sold what Peter rates one of their best horses, Richfield Lady, to Bart Cummings for who she won the VRC Oaks but after a wonderful career based in the South Island’s their biggest gamble was to come in 2011.

Not long after Planet Rock gave them one of their most satisfying career victories in the 1000 Guineas, “it is hard to win those Group 1 races at home as a South Island trainer,” they moved north to Byerley Park.

Their training didn’t miss a beat, rarely with big teams but never without a good horse. Their philosophy has remained the same.

“We feed them well, look after them and treat them as individuals,” Peter says.

That simple plan helped hone other stars like Loader, another 1000 Guineas winner in Media Sensation, Sir Clive and Shuka and has helped lesser equines win more races than they probably should have.

Williams realises none of that would have been possible without patient owners and good people around him.

“Racing has given us a great life and taken us to places you never think you are going to go growing up in the South Island.

“One of the keys is surrounding yourself with good people.

“That started early for me. My first winner was at Greymouth, where my dad (Joe) is from, and it was ridden by Brent Thompson (champion jockey) believe it or not because he was their for an invitational series,” laughs Williams.

There is unmistakeable satisfaction in Williams’ voice that he and Dawn, one of the few women to train 1000 winners in New Zealand, will end their career on such a high note.

They have trained 18 winners from just 87 starters this season for $1,438,870 in stakes, a winner better than every five starts.

While Desert Lightning is likely to join Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman’s Victorian stable many of the stable clients will transfer their horses to a new name in the New Zealand trainer’s ranks: Barb Kennedy.

The wife of champion jockey Warren Kennedy, Barb trained winners in their native South Africa before they moved to New Zealand less than two years ago and she will take over the Williams’ stables at Byerley Park and many of their current horses.

“Barb is a good horse person and we all know what a great rider Warren is so, we are really happy to have them taking over the stable and some of the horses,” says Williams.