Trainer Danny Williams in the mounting yard at Rosehill Gardens.
Camera IconTrainer Danny Williams in the mounting yard at Rosehill Gardens. Credit: News Corp Australia, Jenny Evans

Kopi Luwak owes big debt to trainer Danny Williams after shocking trackwork mishap

Brad DavidsonThe Daily Telegraph

DANNY Williams has won hundreds of races but never has he felt so emotional than when Kopi Luwak claimed his maiden victory at Moruya earlier this month.

“(Sky Racing presenter) John Scorse interviewed me (after the race) and I just couldn’t talk,” Williams recalled. “I’ve won two races on Melbourne Cup Day and we’ve won some nice races but I’ve never been that emotional following a win.

“I think it was just the sheer fact I nearly lost my life on that particular horse.

“It was a very emotional thing for me because this is the horse that broke my pelvis and I had an open book fracture due to this horse.

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“There is a 55 per cent mortality rate with that injury.”

It was three years ago this week when Goulburn trainer Williams’ life was turned upside down.

It started out like any other morning at trackwork only this time Williams was aboard the “strongest horse I’ve ever ridden” in 42 years of riding.

Trainer Danny Williams was emotional after Kopi Luwak broke its maiden at Moruya.
Camera IconTrainer Danny Williams was emotional after Kopi Luwak broke its maiden at Moruya. Credit: News Corp Australia, Jenny Evans
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“The first day I rode (Kopi Luwak), he was a bit difficult to get on and he was a very big horse and had just come from the breakers,” Williams said. “He bucked and the initial buck threw me out of the saddle because I wasn’t expecting anything.

“He bucked so powerfully that as I was coming back down into the saddle he was coming back up again.

“He hit with so much force that when I landed in between my legs I heard a pop and I thought it might have been one of my testicles going but it was my pelvis being sheared apart.

“I hit the saddle with the impact of a high velocity car collision and it just separated my pelvis underneath my legs.

“He bucked about another six or seven times and as he continued to buck I could feel myself being ripped apart. He separated the pelvis underneath my legs to the extent that the right leg from the sacrum at the back of your back also broke off.”

The next 56 days were the toughest of Williams’ life as he lay motionless on his back in a Canberra Hospital bed recovering. He needed assistance to go to the toilet, couldn’t even sit up to eat his lunch or dinner and was still training racehorses by his mobile phone and Skype.

It sounds pretty bad but Williams was just happy to be alive.

“I bled a litre of blood just in that area and there were concerns I had lost quite a lot of blood,” he said. “When I got to the hospital they rushed me to Canberra, so they were a bit fearful I may have bled to death at that point in time.

“I had two operations to put me back together.”

Trainer Danny Williams was in hospital for 56 days after shattering his pelvis while riding Kopi Luwak in a track gallop in 2015.
Camera IconTrainer Danny Williams was in hospital for 56 days after shattering his pelvis while riding Kopi Luwak in a track gallop in 2015. Credit: Supplied

Screws, pins, metal bars and steel plates — you name it — Williams needed them all to put his body back together.

“Initially to put my pelvis together to stop the bleeding, they put four metal bars in through my stomach which went into my pelvis,” he said. “Then it crossed externally out of my body and that held me together.

“Seven days later they did another operation where they cut me from virtually kidney to kidney and then went in through in front of my stomach down under my groin. They actually had to tear a lot of the muscles and ligaments.

“Then they put a plate on the bone and I’ve got four screws and a plate to hold under my legs together and I’ve got a pin which goes through my right thigh into my sacrum to hold my sacrum and hip together.”

It’s fair to say Kopi Luwak owes Williams a fair few good performances on the racetrack and three years later he might be starting to do just that.

He already won a Moruya maiden in arrogant fashion in his first start in 768 days on January 8 and will line up in the TAB Highway Handicap (1400m) at Royal Randwick on Saturday.

It’s been a long road back, not just for Williams but for Kopi Luwak too after the horse suffered a serious injury in a routine track gallop not long after his first start back in 2015.

“He bowed his tendon and it was graded a four out of five,” Williams said.

“That’s about as bad as they come and the next step is they give way. It’s been a very long process getting him back to where we are now and I doubted whether he would race again.

“It was quite an emotional thing not only to get the horse to the races after such a severe injury but after such a severe injury to myself as well.

Danny Williams rates Kopi Luwak among the best horses he has started in a TAB Highway Handicap.
Camera IconDanny Williams rates Kopi Luwak among the best horses he has started in a TAB Highway Handicap. Credit: News Corp Australia, Mark Evans

“It was quite emotional for me to try and savour the moment at Moruya.”

So can Kopi Luwak win at Randwick on Saturday?

Many form students would put a line through the five-year-old gelding’s chances based on the fact he is rising from 1010m to 1400m but Williams believes the extra trip will be an advantage.

“He has been in training on and off for 12 months,” said Williams, who also had his nose broken by Kopi Luwak when the horse reared up at trackwork late last year.

“We had him ready for a Randwick 1300m Highway race (on January 6) but we felt the softer option was to go to Moruya over 1010m (on the Monday). He is not a 1000m horse and it was a bit short for him but he still managed to win.”

Williams already rates Kopi Luwak alongside Don’t Give A Damn and Saturday’s rival Acquittal as the three best horses he has lined up in Highway races in Sydney.

He is already in front of horses like Pumpkin Pie and She Knows in Williams’ pecking order and who knows how far Kopi Luwak will go.

“He is very untapped,” Williams said.

“When we were offered money for the horse (from overseas before he did his tendon), the particular agent that was trying to source the horse to buy said they count each step in the last 200m or 400m and that there were only two horses with a bigger stride (than Kopi Luwak) and they were the horses like Black Caviar at the time and horses of that calibre.

“They said, on the strides they counted they believed he was a genuine Group horse.

“He doesn’t really know what to do yet and he is just doing everything on raw ability.

“We’ve never really found the (bottom) of him. In the last two years prior to Moruya he only ever had four gallops and because of his injury we didn’t gallop him.

“He went into the Moruya race basically as a barrier trial. He came through it well and he had a jump out on the course proper (on Tuesday) and went well.”

Stablemates Kopi Luwak ($4.60) and Acquittal ($4.40) are locked in a battle for favouritism tomorrow.

Williams has always had a big opinion of Acquittal as well and feels he is also looking for the 1400m.

Williams will also saddle up Pumpkin Pie in Race 8 but feels she will need the run.

Originally published as Kopi owes big debt to Williams