William Buick

William Buick (born 22 July 1988) is a Norwegian-British flat jockey.

Buick was born in Norway in 1988, where his Scottish-born father, Walter, was Scandinavian champion jockey on eight occasions and his mother, Maria, a dressage rider and showjumper.

He has two younger brothers called Martin and Andrew.

Buick was riding horses from a young age and used to ride out in the mornings before going to school.

He later recalled "I didn’t go much (to school). I rode out most mornings and was always late. My mum wasn’t too keen but my dad said that if it was what I wanted, crack on."

Fluent in Norwegian, Danish, English and German, Buick was a regular visitor to the UK, where he spent summer holidays riding out for trainers Reg Hollinshead, Marcus Tregoning and Andrew Balding.

After completing his education abroad, he joined Balding as an apprentice jockey.

Buick was very small for his age but had his first ride on 10 August 2006 at the age of 18, on Tiny Tim, trained by Andrew Balding, at Brighton racecourse.

Buick's first win came on the Paul D’Arcy trained Bank on Benny at Salisbury on 27 September 2006 and by the end of the year he had ridden ten winners, leading Ian Balding to say "without question he is the best apprentice we have ever had."

He shared the champion apprentice jockey title in 2008 with David Probert and won the Lester Award for Apprentice Jockey of the Year in 2007 and 2008.

Buick was part of a duel for the 2008 apprentice title, fought between him and David Probert, who like Buick was attached to the Andrew Balding stable and had his first ride on the stable's schoolmaster Tiny Tim.

While Buick had the advantage of a full season's experience (which had included a first victory at Royal Ascot on Dark Missile in the Wokingham Stakes), Probert had the advantage of a 5 lbs claim and the race for the title went all the way to the final day of the season, with both riders finishing on 50 winners.

For the second year running, Buick was named Apprentice Jockey of the Year at the British horseracing awards ceremony, the Lesters.

In October 2009 Buick won his first Group 1 race, the E. P. Taylor Stakes in Woodbine, Canada, on Lahaleeb for trainer Mick Channon.

From 2010 to 2014 he was stable jockey to John Gosden.

Buick won his first Group1 race in Canada in 2010 and since then has won Group 1 races in England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

He has won four British Classic Races: the St Leger in 2010, 2011 and 2021 and the Derby in 2018.

In January 2010, he was offered the role of stable jockey to Newmarket-based trainer John Gosden after the trainer parted company with his previous stable jockey Jimmy Fortune.

The partnership got off to a perfect start at the Dubai Carnival in March 2010, with Buick winning the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan on Gosden's Dar Re Mi on what was his first top-level ride (and just fourth ride in total) for the trainer.

After the race, Gosden commented on the appointment of Buick.

"Yes, it is good to be vindicated straightaway. I like his style, I like his intelligence, I like his balance."

Buick and Gosden were to enjoy further Group 1 success together in 2010, with victory in the Arlington Million (Debussy) in August followed by St Leger victory for Arctic Cosmos at Doncaster, giving Buick a maiden Classic success and Gosden a third St Leger victory (Shantou in 1996 and Lucarno in 2007).

After the win, Buick said "To be standing here is very special. To win a Classic is what every jockey wants to do and it has been my dream since I came into racing".

Buick also formed a partnership with the David Simcock-trained two-year-old Dream Ahead, winning the Group 1 Prix Morny at Deauville (giving Buick a first Group 1 success in France) and the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket.

The year ended badly for Buick, as he was forced to spend New Year's Eve in hospital having suffered two falls the day before at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.

Having initially thought to have been lucky to escape injury as no bones were broken, he was found to have bleeding on the brain and, after a week's stay in hospital, was forced to sit on the sidelines for six weeks before returning to race-riding.

After a successful start to his career as stable jockey to John Gosden in 2010, Buick was tipped by many to challenge for the flat jockeys championship in 2011.

However, with the Horseman's Group having set prize-money tariffs specifying the minimum amount of prize-money racecourses should offer for each type of race, Gosden was one of a number of trainers to agree to a boycott of 'under-tariff' races, a stance that led Buick to comment "It’s going to affect me, but I totally agree with it. Something has to be done about it and that’s the only way it’s going to be done, by people not running their horses."

Nevertheless, Buick was able to ride a century of winners in Britain in a calendar year for the first time and, for the second year running, was successful in five Group 1 contests worldwide.

The first of these was a success on Nathaniel in the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July.

Nathaniel had already given Buick the second Royal Ascot victory of his career in the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes (quickly followed by Beachfire later that day in the Wolferton Stakes) earlier in the season.

Dream Ahead, on whom Buick had won two Group 1 races in 2011, won both the Sprint Cup at Haydock over 6f and then the Prix de la Forêt over 7f at Longchamp, in which he beat the star French mare Goldikova, providing Buick with the first Group 1 double of his career, having won the Prix Marcel Boussac earlier that day on Elusive Kate for John Gosden.

Buick also won a second successive St Leger with victory on Masked Marvel on what was just his second ride in the race.

Nathaniel, on whom Buick had won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 2011, was bidding to become the third horse in history to win the race back to back after a successful seasonal debut in the Eclipse Stakes two weeks prior.

In 2012, Buick won nine Group 1 races across the globe.

One of these victories came in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot aboard Fallen For You, where Buick completed a treble after he won the Albany Stakes aboard Newfangled and the Wolferton Stakes with Gatewood on day four of the royal meeting.

Buick said: "It's fantastic - these are the days that jockeys dream of. Just to have a horse that runs well at Royal Ascot is very good. To have a winner is fantastic and to have three winners in one day is really amazing."

He went away from Royal Ascot with five winners in total.

In 2015 he signed with Godolphin.

Before Buick's first ride, the former Classic-winning trainer Ian Balding had struck a bet with the Tote at 500–1 on Buick becoming champion jockey before the year 2020.