Much has been written about the riding exploits of Will Biddick the most successful jockey in Point to Point history. Eight time Champion Men’s Point to Point rider with a current tally of 576 winners pointing and a further 38 in Hunter Chases; a dream win over the Aintree fences on Famous Clermont to take last season’s Foxhunters and back to back wins of the Punchestown Champion Hunter Chase on Caid du Berlais for Rose Loxton but it is his 2021 training feat in the Cheltenham Festival version with the fragile Porlock Bay that clearly means most to the multi-talented Cornishman. And now his training career is proving that he is every bit as astute in this sphere too having saddled just 10 runners this season resulting in an impressive 8 winners, a purple patch that is bordering on Willie Mullins territory!
The son of a farmer, his first winner as a young 17 year old jockey was at Axe Vale on Let’s Fly trained by Ross Oliver. He happily admits that he didn’t exactly excel at school and was always destined for a career with horses. Moving to Venetia Williams, he lodged with fellow riders, Sam Thomas and the late Liam Treadwell, and explained, “they took me under their wing and taught me so much. It was like me being a young horse schooling with older ones, I couldn’t help but improve.” After riding a lot as a claiming amateur and then turning professional for a while, he still returned to his family farm in Cornwall to help his father every summer. It was during these summers that he grafted on the farm and also learnt to break in horses, a skill that he is highly respected for with several trainers including Champion trainer Paul Nicholls.
Combining the breaking and pre-training business alongside his now burgeoning training enterprise, Will received a call from owner, John Studd, who wished to move one of his horses back from a successful career in France. The talented but fragile Porlock Bay was to provide a fairy-tale occasion for both owner and trainer. An early success in a point was followed by a surprise defeat by Sametegal in a Hunter Chase at Wincanton. Several experts were heard to remark that a good run in the Cheltenham Foxhunters was now out of the question the horse having patently failed to stay on the soft surface at the Somerset course. Will however had other thoughts and explained, “Due to the BHA rules during Covid, amateurs were unable to ride and so I employed Lorcan Williams to ride the horse on this occasion as I felt out of any of the professional jockeys, he rode most like me. In the race though, Lorcan admitted that he had a moment when he decided to take a pull in the race, as he felt that’s what I would have done, and it was probably at the wrong moment!” Undeterred Will thought as long as the horse saw the race out, he’d win. At Cheltenham in a nail-biting finish and the closest of the entire meeting, Lorcan and Porlock Bay did indeed see the race out prevailing by a short-head in front of the eerily quiet stands. Will credits that win with being a turning point in his training career and certainly the biggest thrill so far. His gratitude to John Studd is immense and indeed reciprocated as following the retirement of Porlock Bay, John immediately had a worthy successor in the shape of Macklin.
Following the success at the Festival, Will was contacted by Rupert Swallow keen to buy horses to syndicate. Although going rather over budget at the sales, Rupert struck gold purchasing two, both under the newly formed Pendil Partnership aimed at younger racegoers at a very affordable yearly cost. - www.thependilpartnership.com The first, Il Pino initially won at Chaddesley Corbett under the care of Will before being sent to Paul Nicholls where he has won again over hurdles at Wincanton. His other purchase was the mare Regatta de Blanc who he has kept with Will. She impressed last season winning twice at Larkhill but this season has shown considerable improvement to win not only the Coronation Cup in a dead heat but also a competitive Hunter Chase at Taunton to remain unbeaten for her large and enthusiastic group of owners. Macklin too has shown improvement this year winning first at Milborne St Andrew easily brushing aside the well-fancied Highway Jewel before also taking a decent Hunter Chase at Taunton last week much to the delight of his owner.
Much of this recent success could be down to a change of yards when Will took the opportunity to re-locate to a new base at Queen Camel courtesy of father-in-law, Rupert Nuttall. Set right in the heart of Blackmore and Sparkford Vale country, a large airy barn houses both those in training and the youngsters in for breaking and pre-training. After putting in a round sand gallop (and with further plans to put in a 4 furlong gallop), Will realised that his horses would need to acclimatise to using flatter ground and with this in mind resisted training them up the steep hills at Ditcheat before the move was completed. His close relationship with Paul Nicholls too is paramount and has had the biggest influence on his training methods explaining he still regularly goes to Paul for advice and support.
This season the results have been spectacular with (at the time of writing) only two of his horses not winning and these have included two Hunter chases and a Coronation Cup as well as several nice youngsters including No Drama This End who won by an impressive 23 lengths at Badbury Rings this month. He was fulsome in his praise for his staff that includes the multi-tasking, Millie Orttewell who has been with him for five years employed as secretary/box-driver/nanny, Head Girl Georgie Lock, Sarah Gould, Alice Stevens and Jodie Bennett. In addition he has three Novice Riders, Fred Philipson-Stow, Rian Corcoran and Alex Ingram who all get coaching from former jockey Roddi Greene on a weekly basis. Will explained “I like to give young riders a chance and get a lot of satisfaction from watching them improve although they have to work hard to get the rides. But I get a lot of satisfaction in seeing the progression of both the young riders and the young horses.”
Married to International show-jumper Harriet, they have two sons, Archie and Oliver and while Will is still riding at the very top of his game, he also has his eye on the future and is keen to invest in more young horses to bring on for sale. A full National Hunt licence however has been ruled out with Will saying “Pointing has been so good to me and I would rather give back to the sport and while my job is to get winners, I prefer to run horses locally rather than travelling all over the country and so I spend time to pick the races and courses which will most suit the horses. In fact I often find I am crossing the line on one and already planning where I will run it next as I pull up.”
During lockdown Will was asked what his ambition was to which he replied “have Porlock Bay win the Cheltenham Foxhunters!” With that firmly cemented on his CV, it is apparent that any goals are there to be achieved and whilst on a numbers game he may not be challenging yet for the title of Champion trainer to go alongside the many awards he has won as a rider, this is a trainer who is looking to the future. With both the horses and young riders that he is bringing to the game and educating, this future as a trainer, looks to be every bit as exciting as his riding career if recent results are anything to go by. Check out www.willbiddick.co.uk
All photos courtesy of Will Biddick