About a month ago an article in Horse and Hound caught my eye, and with the few clicks of a mouse, a life-long ambition was fulfilled and I became a racehorse owner. What makes this deal particularly sweet though is the cost – zero. Funded by Racing for Change, Tweet Lady truly is the people’s racehorse, owned by her twitter followers and fans. The beautiful and ever more popular 2 year old is one of 50 horses in training at Rod Millman’s family style yard, The Paddocks, nestled among the hills in Devon, and we went down to meet her as she was prepping for her third race.
I’ve always been told that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, but in this instance I might be wrong. As trainer Rod Millman explains to me,
“Racing has been in the Dark Ages for a long, long time. It’s like anything – if you look at how the Premier League is run now it’s totally different to how it was 25 years ago, and Racing has sort of stayed a bit the same, so it’s got to move with the times a bit, and this is just one of the initiatives to try and bring more people in. The idea behind it is for people like yourself to get the feel of racehorse ownership without the massive expense, hopefully you will enjoy it, maybe you will come in to another partnership or even buy one on your own. It’s a taster. We’ve had a good contingent come to the races each time she’s run; one of the men was all keen to get his own racehorse and his fiancee was trying to put a damper on it because the wedding was coming up! It’s definitely getting people interested.”
Rod started out at The Paddocks as an exercise jockey and jump jockey in the 80’s, and has been resident trainer there for 21 years. His son Patrick is Tweet Lady’s regular exercise rider, and Patrick’s brother James rides her in races. As I write this Tweet Lady has just over 1,200 followers on twitter; every time she runs there’ll be competitions for Owner’s badges, and extra tickets can be arranged for those who don’t win. The Millmans will be organising an open day at The Paddocks for owners, who also get to decide which charity any prize money she might win should be donated to. Tweet Lady’s next race is this monday night (1st August) at Windsor, and she’ll have 3 enthusiastic owners cheering her on. My thanks to the team at The Paddocks for showing us round and introducing us to her, and wishing them a succesful campaign with the people’s racehorse. As they say in American racing, Go Baby Go! Go Tweet Lady!
