John Francome

The Lambourn Open Day, a fixture in the racing calendar for more than three decades, returns in 2026, celebrating Lambourn's role at the heart of the sport whilst raising vital funds for charity. On the morning of Good Friday, April 3, over 20 of Lambourn's Flat and National Hunt trainers will open their doors to the public, offering a rare chance to step inside some of the country's most famous yards. Leading names such as Nicky Henderson, Archie Watson, Clive Cox, Ed Walker, Jamie Osborne, Jamie Snowden and Richard Hughes...

The British Racing School (BRS) is well known for its key role in providing rounded training for young staff coming into the industry, and in recent years within its grounds in Newmarket a new charitable project has been launched. The Newmarket Pony Academy (NPA) was the brainchild of Godolphin's charities manager Penny Taylor. In association with BRS CEO Andrew Braithwaite and former CEO Grant Harris, she formulated a pilot for a scheme aimed at helping vulnerable and disadvantaged schoolchildren in the catchment area of Suffolk and Cambridge. "The schools can...