Flat jockey Wilfred (Willie) Berg was born circa 1937, the son of German parents. He reportedly arrived in Ireland with his entire possessions in a cigarette carton and was taken in by a kindly vet in Navan. He served his apprenticeship initially with W. J. ‘Rasher’ Smith, then with Seamus McGrath and was a leading apprentice in Ireland during the second half of the 1950s.
He scored one of his first successes when dead-heating on the McGrath-trained Albus in a Phoenix Park apprentice race on May 26, 1956. In October that year he won the J. T. Rogers Memorial Gold Cup on Stella Coeli for trainer Tom Taaffe. The following month, he recorded a notable victory on George Wellesley’s four-year-old gelding Roberta in the Naas November Handicap
Willie rode 12 winners from 122 mounts in 1957 including the Enniskillen Memorial Handicap and the Kildare Handicap, both at the Curragh, on the Seamus McGrath-trained Sun Invasion, while at Leopardstown he won the Three Rock Handicap for John Oxx on Roving Gipsy and the Hollywood Handicap on Tom Dreaper’s gelding Brimstone.
His 11 winners from 73 mounts in 1958 included the Kildare Handicap again, this time on Taipecc. Later that season he captured another important handicap when riding the Desmond Hayes-trained Lavella to victory in the 1958 Irish Cambridgeshire.
Willie rode out his 3lb claim at the start of 1959. However, he managed to win two more major handicaps in 1960, beginning with the Irish Lincolnshire on Farrney Fox for trainer Charlie Weld, and ending with a second Irish Cambridgeshire triumph on Lavella.
According to ‘Who was Who in Irish Racing’, success in the saddle “brought fast cars and a bevy of females, which did little for his racecourse fortunes.” In 1962 he managed just five wins, the first four for trainer Clem Magnier, the last for John Murphy. They were:
April 4: Foundation, Brownstown Handicap, Navan
May 23: Scoo-ped, Sandycove Handicap, Leopardstown,
May 31: Scoo-ped, May Sprint Handicap, Curragh
June 9: Fiora, Slievenamon Handicap, Leopardstown
July 30: Slipperless, Eyrefield Maiden Stakes, Curragh
During 1964 and the first part of 1965 he rode in India where he was highly successful, riding 78 winners. Towards the end of 1965 he arrived in England and joined Newmarket trainer Bill O’Gorman, taking out a jockey’s licence.
Aged 29, Willie achieved his first British winner on just his fourth ride when partnering Day Tripper to dead-heat with Greville Starkey’s mount Durability in the Chandos Auction Maiden Plate for two-year-olds at Warwick on May 28, 1966.
Sadly, that initial victory did not prove a precursor to greater things, for he had only six more rides that season, all of them unplaced, and did not renew his licence the following year.
According to ‘Who was Who in Irish Racing’: “Returning to the continent, he was reported to have met his end in a car crash.”
