Venetia Williams (born 10 May 1960) is an English racehorse trainer specialising in National Hunt racing. She is based at stables at Aramstone in Herefordshire, England. She won the Hennessy Gold Cup and King George VI Chase with Teeton Mill in 1998, and went on to win the 2009 Grand National with 100-1 outsider Mon Mome.
Williams was born 10 May 1960, [1] at Scorrier House, Cornwall. She started as an amateur National Hunt jockey, she rode in the Grand National in 1988 and fell at Bechers Brook, and another fall 2 weeks later at Worcester Racecourse, she was forced to retire after sustaining a broken neck. [1] She worked for racehorse trainers Martin Pipe and John Edwards, before herself taking up a licence to train in 1995. [1]
In 2009, she won the Grand National with 100-1 outsider Mon Mome. [2] This victory made her only the second female trainer to win the race, after Jenny Pitman. [2] After the race, even Williams was shocked by the outcome, saying, "How can you ever expect that? It's unbelievable." [2] She also trained Teeton Mill, winner of the Hennessy Gold Cup and King George VI Chase in 1998. [3]
She trained Something Wells to a win in the Freddie Williams Festival Plate at the 2009 Cheltenham Festival, saddling the first two home, less than two hours after winning with Kayf Aramis in the Pertemps Final at the same meeting. [3]
Her total earnings for hurdles, chasing and National Hunt flat totalled over £5 million pounds in 2024. [3]
Arkle was an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse. A bay gelding by Archive out of Bright Cherry, Arkle was the grandson of the unbeaten flat racehorse and prepotent sire Nearco. Arkle was bred by Mary Baker of Malahow House, near Naul, County Dublin, Ireland, and was born at Ballymacoll Stud, County Meath. He was owned by Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, who named him after the mountain Arkle in Sutherland, Scotland, that bordered her Sutherland estate. Trained by Tom Dreaper at Greenogue, Kilsallaghan, in County Dublin, he was ridden during his steeplechasing career by Pat Taaffe.
Henrietta Catherine Knight is an English Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Knight is best known as a trainer of National Hunt racehorses. She trained triple Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Best Mate, also winner of the 2003 King George VI Chase, and the 2000 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Edredon Bleu, also winner of the 2003 King George VI Chase. She retired in 2012 with over 700 winners to her name.
The Fellow (1985–2008) was an AQPS top-class National Hunt racehorse in the early 1990s. He won the 1994 Cheltenham Gold Cup and narrowly lost the 1991 and 1992 renewals. He also won the 1991 and 1992 King George VI Chase and the 1991 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris. Along with Mandarin, he is one of only two horses to win both the latter race and the Gold Cup. A full brother to French Horse of the Century Al Capone II, The Fellow was trained in France by François Doumen, ridden by the Polish jockey Adam Kondrat, and owned by the Marquise Soledad de Moratalla.
See More Business was a top-class National Hunt chaser in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He won the 1999 Cheltenham Gold Cup as well as the 1997 and 1999 King George VI Chase.
David Nicholson was a British National Hunt jockey and trainer. He was British jump racing Champion Trainer in the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons.
Frederick Thomas Winter, was a British National Hunt racing racehorse jockey and trainer. He was British jump racing Champion Jockey four times and British jump racing Champion Trainer eight times. He is the only person to have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Grand National as both jockey and trainer. Winter won the Grand National four times, as a jockey in 1957 (Sundew) and 1962 (Kilmore), and as a trainer in 1965 and 1966 (Anglo).
Gordon Waugh Richards was a British racehorse trainer specialising mainly in National Hunt racing. He trained two winners of the Grand National with Lucius in 1978 and Hallo Dandy in 1984. He also trained One Man to win the King George VI Chase in 1995 and 1996.
Fulke Thomas Tyndall Walwyn CVO was a British jockey and a celebrated racehorse trainer, who was particularly successful in National Hunt racing.
François Doumen is a retired French racehorse trainer. He was a winner of the King George VI Chase on five occasions with Nupsala (1987), The Fellow, Algan (1994), First Gold (2000), and the Cheltenham Gold Cup with The Fellow (1994).
Aidan Coleman is a retired Irish National Hunt jockey. During a seventeen-year career based in Great Britain, he rode four winners at the Cheltenham Festival and a total of 13 Grade 1 winners. In June 2023 he sustained a serious leg injury in a fall at Worcester and was unable to return to race-riding. He announced his retirement on medical advice in April 2024.
The 2009 Grand National was the 162nd running of the Grand National horse race that took place at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, England, on 4 April 2009.
Mon Mome is an AQPS racehorse, which won the 2009 John Smith's Grand National at Aintree Racecourse, run on April 4, 2009. It was ridden by Liam Treadwell and trained by Venetia Williams. He won by 12-lengths at odds of 100–1, making Mon Mome the largest-priced winner since Foinavon in 1967.
Liam Treadwell was an English National Hunt jockey, who won over 300 races between 2009 and 2019. He won the 2009 Grand National on Mon Mome at odds of 100/1, and also won the United House Gold Cup, Byrne Group Plate and Grand Sefton Steeplechase races.
Patrick Taaffe was an Irish National Hunt jockey who is best remembered as the jockey of Arkle. The pair dominated National Hunt racing in the mid-sixties, winning the Irish Grand National, the King George VI Chase, two Hennessy Gold Cups, three Cheltenham Gold Cups and the Whitbread Cup.
Stanley Thomas Edward Mellor was a National Hunt jockey and trainer who was the first jockey to ride 1,000 winners and Champion Jockey three years in a row from 1960 to 1962.
Teeton Mill was a British Thoroughbred racehorse who competed under National Hunt rules. He originally competed in hunter chases, which are confined to horses who have taken part in fox hunting, and won five of his first six races. When moved into open competition he won four consecutive races including the Badger Beer Chase, Hennessy Gold Cup, King George VI Chase and the Ascot Chase before sustaining a career-ending injury in the 1999 Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Coneygree is a retired British Thoroughbred racehorse who competed in National Hunt races. In a career which ran from November 2010 to February 2019 he ran in eighteen races, winning nine times. In March 2015, he became the first novice chaser to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup for more than forty years. His subsequent career was hampered by injury and he did not run again in the Cheltenham Gold Cup after winning it.
Kerstin was an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and broodmare who won the 1958 Cheltenham Gold Cup. She was imported to England as a young horse and showed early promise by winning over hurdles as a four year old. She showed improvement when campaigned in steeplechases and won the National Hunt Handicap Chase in 1956. She ran four times in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, finishing second in 1957 before becoming the second mare to win the race in the following year. She was unplaced in the net two Gold Cups but produced an outstanding effort to win the Hennessy Gold Cup under 164 pounds in November 1959. After her retirement from racing she had some success as a broodmare.
Roddy Owen was a British-bred, Irish-trained Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1959 Cheltenham Gold Cup. After winning several good steeplechases in Ireland he was aimed at the major British races in the 1958/59 National Hunt season. He finished a close second in the King George VI Chase and then started second favourite for the Gold Cup in March. He relished the heavy ground came from a seemingly impossible position at the second last to defeat a strong field which included Linwell, Kerstin and Pas Seul. He finished fourth to Pas Seul in the following year's Gold Cup at the age of eleven.
Native River is an Irish-bred, British-trained, retired Thoroughbred racehorse who raced under National Hunt rules. He was a specialist long-distance steeplechaser known for his front-running style and apparently inexhaustible stamina. He won three minor hurdle races in the 2014/15 season and started his chasing career in the 2015/16 season, winning the Worcester Novices' Chase and the Mildmay Novices' Chase. He emerged as a top-class steeplechaser in the following season when he won the Hennessy Gold Cup, Welsh Grand National and Denman Chase as well as finishing third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. In the 2017/18 season he won a second Denman Chase before recording his biggest win in the 2018 Cheltenham Gold Cup. In the 2019/20 season he won the Many Clouds Chase and achieved a record third win in the Denman Chase. His last win came in the Cotswold Chase in February 2021 and he was retired after a disappointing run in the 2021 Welsh Grand National. He is the most recent British-trained Cheltenham Gold Cup winner.
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