IWhen Bill Gredley was born in 1933 into a working-class family in London’s East End, many local residents would flock to Epsom on the first Wednesday in June to spend the afternoon at the Derby, and it’s fair to say the chances of Poplar’s new resident making the same journey 91 years later as the owner of one of the race’s favourite horses were slim.
But Gredley has always been an eccentric, in racing and in life. The self-made property tycoon once infuriated the ultra-conservative Ascot fashion police by turning up to Royal Ascot in a morning suit, top hat and ponytail. “They had a meeting with the Queen and everyone and they should have let me in?” Gredley said this week. “When I spoke to the Queen years later she laughed about it and said they’d made a fuss.”
Gredley has bred horses with names like Eco Friendly and Environment Friend for decades to raise environmental awareness. He is known for his penchant for unusual sculptures and art, and a win for Ambiente Friendly, the 6-1 fourth-favorite in the 245th Derby at Epsom on Saturday, would make him the most attractive winning owner in years, given the length of the Epsom Straight.
But it is a strange twist of fate that the victory of a man who has always done things his own way should also be the victory of a thoroughly old-fashioned approach to thoroughbred breeding and racing.
For the first 200 years or so of the Epsom Classic, it was dominated by landowner breeders with a few mares who continually tried, and mostly failed, to find the right combination of stallion and broodmare to produce a Derby winner. From the mid-1970s, the traditional methods were swept away by a new model, primarily a government-funded yearling sale with three-figure strings and seven-figure price tags.
Mr Gredley, who bought the historic and magnificent Stitchworth Park Stud near Newmarket in 1980, is one of the few who continues to keep the old passion alive.
Flat racing in Britain, and Europe, has come to be dominated by two colours: the royal blue of Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Racecourse and the dark blue of the Coolmore Stud Syndicate’s horses trained by Aidan O’Brien in County Tipperary. O’Brien and Godolphin’s head trainer in Britain, Charlie Appleby, are two of the top three Derby betting winners.
But Gredley’s yellow, black and white silks have been a constant thread in the grass’s fabric for decades now, outnumbered to be sure, but not entirely overwhelmed.
His finest moment so far has been when he won the Oaks at Epsom with the filly User Friendly, followed by the St Leger Stakes in 1992, but his Group 1 wins stretch back to the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown in 1991 and also include a memorable win in the Gold Cup at Ascot with favoured stayer Big Orange in 2017. But a Derby victory would be his greatest honour.
“I’ve been to all the top races around the world and going to the Derby still gets my blood pumping,” Gredley says.
“We are also into show jumping and have a son [the prospective Olympian, Tim] He’s a very good international show jumper, so although we have a lot of flat racing and show jumping horses, winning the Derby would be the ultimate honour for most people and certainly for us.
“I really like this horse. He showed his strength at the Lingfield Trials. [in early May] “He’s got the speed and the talent to get down the hill and get up. His win at Lingfield was impressive and he’s doing well at home, but that doesn’t mean he’ll win. It’s a horse race and it’s the Derby and he’ll be happy just to be in the mix in the Derby.”
Gredley’s unpredictable approach to racing was also made clear last week when it was announced that Rab Havlin would replace Callum Sheppard, who won the Ambient Friendly at Lingfield in Saturday’s Classic. Havlin is a veteran of 33 seasons of jockey experience but is not a go-to jockey at Epsom in the same way that Lester Piggott and Kieren Fallon were.
But Gredley has an instinct for making decisions and deals at the right time that has taken him from unlikely beginnings to owning 730 acres of land in Suffolk. And somewhere along the line, that instinct rekindled an old friendship with James Fanshawe, who was looking for a home for a yearling he had bought for his 90th birthday.
“Bill bought nine horses at Craven Breeze-Ups for his 90th birthday. [in April] “Bill said last year, [former jockey] He told Freddie Tylicki to go find a horse, and Freddie bought one for Bill for 80,000 guineas. [£84,000] And if it was known he was going to be a Derby contender, he would have made a lot more money.”
Gredley also opted to run Ambient Friendly, a son of 2000 Guineas winner Gleneagles, at middle distances this year rather than a mile. “Bill and Tim saw the stayer genes in the horse’s bloodline,” Fanshawe said, “whereas I was looking to go over a mile and up.”
With Ambiente Friendly now confirmed as one of 16 horses to run at Epsom this weekend, it appears this is just the latest in a series of twists, smart decisions and strokes of good fortune that have brought the colt and his 91-year-old owner to within reach of Derby glory. At 4:30pm on Saturday we’ll find out if the rest is history.
