Watch young jockey William Buick in the parade ring tipping his cap politely to owners and he looks too slight to be driving home hefty old handicappers. The pink choirboy cheeks have ladies wanting to pick up the 20-year-old and cuddle him. But like other top riders who have had those good manners and angelic looks — Walter Swinburn, Steve Cauthen and Jamie Spencer come to mind — William has had enough early brushes with the stewards to show there is nothing soft about his will to win.
William was the apprentice sensation of 2007, winning the Wokingham at Royal Ascot on Dark Missile for his chief employer, Andrew Balding, and a string of handicaps for Barry Hills on The Illies. But champion apprentices can be the barbecue flares of racing, burning brightly for a short while then fizzling out once they lose the 7lb, 5lb and finally 3lb allowances which encourage trainers to put them up against fully fledged professionals.
William is one of the exceptions. A natural with perfect balance and that precious capacity to induce horses to run sweetly for him, he has sailed through the potential pitfall stage. He has made it, thanks partly to a formidable management team, starting with the Balding family. Andrew’s father Ian wagered a tenner at 500–1 that Walter would become champion jockey before 2020 and Andrew now gives him the pick of the Kingsclere rides.
The jockey’s father Walter, eight times champion jockey in Scandinavia, goes through races with him and agent Simon Dodds has had the sense not to rush the prodigy, concentrating on quality rather than quantity.
That tough taskmaster Barry Hills told me one day of William Buick, ‘He’s the best I’ve seen since Steve Cauthen. I’m happy to put him on anything,’ and the boy, who was too small at 16 to be granted a licence by the Norwegian authorities, has already had rides for Godolphin and for Sir Michael Stoute.
I went to Sandown last Wednesday just to watch him, and on his first mount William Buick rode a copybook race. Aboard Eve Johnson Houghton’s inexperienced filly Fontley, he tracked the leaders into the straight, went second and challenged two furlongs out (it doesn’t pay to leave it too late at Sandown) and held on to win by a neck. Said Eve, ‘He is a great jockey and understands “trainerspeak” well. I am pleased to use him whenever I can.’
In the next, on Andrew Balding’s Ada River, William allowed the filly, who had previously raced too keenly, to make a steady pace. She was beaten by the talented Bankable, but only by a length. He had kept enough in the tank for when the odds-on favourite used his speed at the end. ‘He’s got there,’ said Andrew. ‘He’s now at the stage where he’ll be riding Group winners regularly.’
William won’t get carried away, though. He might have been born in Yorkshire, not Ovrevoll, Norway. He looks 15, rides 30 and sometimes talks 40. He won’t waste his time riding bad horses on the all-weather in the winter when there is the opportunity of associating with class abroad. He scorns the ‘totting-up’ system for jockeys’ penalties, saying that it doesn’t teach anybody anything.
The winner I was hoping for was Michael Jarvis’s My Verse in the fillies’ handicap. He had won cosily with her last time out despite her obvious greenness. William settled her at the back, made steady progress two out and drove her into the lead a furlong out, despite a little tail-swishing, to win by a length. Polish, poise and determination. You cannot ask for more.
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