A 65-year-old school caretaker is one of 15 jockeys taking part in the historic Newmarket Town Plate later this month.
For Bob Bracken it will be a day he has dreamed of for many years, but one that seemed unlikely to become reality when the trainer he was riding out for at weekends and in school holidays had his licence taken away by the Jockey Club.
But the new management at the yard has come up trumps with Ginistrelli, an eight-year-old gelding by the legendary Frankel, who has won 12 times on the flat and 10 National Hunt races.
Bob Bracken’s dream of riding in the Newmarket Town Plate is about to come true
“He’s a very amenable horse with a great attitude and I think he will be good enough to at least be in the mix,” said Bob, who passed a riding assessment and a medical test before he heard he would be taking part in the UK’s oldest and longest race.
Belfast-born Bob had never even been near a horse when he was encouraged by his family to move away from Northern Ireland to escape from what is now called ‘the troubles’.
“I just wanted a job, so I answered an advert and went to a point-to-point and showjumping yard in Yorkshire, where I learned to ride,” said Bob.
Bob, pictured on the gallops in Dorset, said he cannot wait to take part in this month’s Town Plate
After serving for eight years in the RAF, always looking for the nearest stables to his various postings, Bob went on a six-week resettlement course at the yard of top National Hunt trainer Michael Dickinson.
“The first day out on the gallops, when we rode four times around a one-mile course at a steady canter, left me hardly able to walk the next day, but it demonstrated to me that this was what I wanted to do,” he said.
Various twists and turns in his life saw some long gaps between jobs in racing yards, one of which he filled by taking a degree in archaeology at Birmingham University, where he met his wife, Erica, who works with heavy horses.
Bob took the busy job as caretaker/site manager at Cranbourne Middle School, in Dorset, eight years ago but what he calls ‘the horse bug’ never left him and eventually he began to ride out in his spare time and competed in a handful of charity races.
Bob ended up at Milton Harris’s Beeches Farm yard just up the road in Warminster, again riding out at weekends and in the holidays, but in January this year the trainer’s licence was revoked indefinitely when he was judged ‘not a fit and proper person’ to hold it.
But Bob’s dream has survived and, in a couple of weeks’ time, he and Ginistrelli will be lining up for the great race at Newmarket.
“It’s all I’m thinking about – I can’t wait,” he added.
Source link : https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/newmarket/news/caretaker-bob-set-to-take-his-place-in-historic-horse-race-9378127/
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Publish date : 2024-08-11 15:57:28
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