Williams’s to retire from training
It will be the dawn of a new era for Byerley Park trainers Peter and Dawn Williams, as they get set to enter into the next stage of life after announcing their retirement from racing.
“I am 70 next month and I felt it was time to move on,” Peter Williams said. “I think it is a younger persons game and we have got in and supported these younger ones.”
The husband-and-wife duo have been a dominant force in New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing for several decades, with Peter having trained for half a century when he hangs up his training hat.
“Next month it has been 50 years since I have had a [trainer’s] license, and Dawn came onboard in the eighties. We have been doing it a long time,” he said.
Group 1 performer Sir Clive (Bigstone) and Group 1 winners Desert Lightning (Pride Of Dubai) and Shuka (Bachelor Duke) have been particularly memorable horses for the Williams’s over the years, but it was Sea Swift (Auk) that had the biggest impact on their lives by winning 1988 edition of the Auckland Cup (Gr 1, 3200m), and the NZ$500,000 purse helped her trainers establish their training centre in Ashburton.
Four-year-old Desert Lightning is expected to join the Melbourne stable of Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman while Barbara Kennedy, the wife of expatriate South African jockey Warren Kennedy, will take over the Williams’ barn at Byerley Park in South Auckland.
The Williams’s will move back to the South Island, having bought a house in Christchurch two years ago.