Lloyd Williams calling the shots

As Liam Howley prepares to take over from Robert Hickmott as the registered trainer at Macedon Lodge, owner Lloyd Williams has left no doubt who calls the shots.

The six-time Melbourne Cup-winning owner, most recently with Rekindling earlier this month, says he is the one who decides how his horses will be trained.

Hickmott ended his tenure with Williams on Saturday after The Taj Mahal won the Zipping Classic at Sandown.

Williams told Sydney’s Sky Sports Radio little would change at his farm, saying he was the one in charge.

“Your’e talking to the head trainer here,” Williams said.

“There’s always a lot of controversy who trains the horses.

“The blueprint emanates right here. I’m chairman and chief executive. , I decide how the horses will work and how we will feed them and all those sorts of things and I have people up there who execute it. That is what happens.”

Williams said he hoped to have The Taj Mahal and 2016 Melbourne Cup winner Almandin, who finished second in the Zipping, in the BMW in Sydney in the autumn.

He said he was also looking to have Melbourne Cup runner-up Johannes Vermeer in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes during The Championships while the aim for Rekindling was to return to trainer Joseph O’Brien in Ireland to be prepared for the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot.

Howley, a graduate of the Darley Flying Start program, has been an assistant trainer at Macedon Lodge for about six years.

Williams said Howley’s overseas experience gave him an insight into how the European stayers the leviathan owner has imported should be trained.