Racing Home

We’re into June and it’s Royal Ascot next week! The sun is out and people who love racing are feeling pretty excited. In the meantime, there’s not only a Women in Racing event happening tomorrow but here at Racing Home we’ve also just released a brand new handbook that we’ve been working on for a while. It’s for both employers and employees in the breeding and racing world, including those of you who are self-employed, and providces information and advice on those who are thinking about a family, starting a family or are already parents. There’ll be a link in the shownotes to the guide which is called “Motherhood and Horseracing: Before, During and After Pregnancy Considerations for Parents and Employers” and we’d encourage you not only to read it but to send it on to anyone you think might benefit from it.Which brings me neatly on to today’s episode where I’m chatting with Vicky Low who joins us from the sport of sailing. Our first non-horse-related guest! You might wonder what sailing and horseracing have got in common, and it turns out…quite a lot, and as CEO of The Magenta Project, which you’ll here about, Vick is at the forefront of developing an equitable and inclusive marine industry.  The team here at Racing Home are big on collaboration and have been exploring the state of play for parents, mothers in particular, in other sports, and how we can work together to create change across multiple sports together. This has led us to realise that there are a lot of similarities as well as the obvious difference that one involves boats and one involves horseracing. Vic has become a real ally on some of the areas we’re working on here at Racing Home and we’re looking forward to announcing some further work later in the year.In the meantime, enjoy this conversation.Useful linksFind out more about The Magenta Project here If you're not familiar, have a look at the Women in Racing Mentoring Programme (the Mentors 4 Mums Programme is is also now live!)Check out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!

It’s May, we’ve had the Guineas and we are in the thick of spring, the time of new birth. The buds are flowering, the lambs are out and if you go anywhere near a Thoroughbred stud, you’ll likely see plenty of foals dashing about in the paddocks. And a stud was exactly where we went for this month’s episode of the Racing Home podcast - Mill Farm to be exact, home to Eileen and Keith Harte and their twins, plus their business Keith Harte Bloodstock. As well as co-owning the business, driving mares to their coverings, supervising the team on the farm and providing mentorship through Women in Racing’s excellent programme (yes, it gets ANOTHER plug in this episode), Eileen is also a coach and is just finishing a two-year qualification as a psychotherapist.She’s passionate about recruiting, developing and training people in the stud and bloodstock world, and talked to me here about the joy it brings her and Keith when people they’ve developed go onto great things, as well as raising twins on a very busy stud farm, away from their families in Ireland. Enjoy! Useful linksIf you're not familiar, have a look at the Women in Racing Mentoring Programme (the Mum Mentoring Programme is coming soon!)Check out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!

If you’ve listened to first two episodes this season then you may well have heard Susannah Gill mention the topic of how society values - or actually, doesn’t value - people who care for others, which we touched on in last time’s conversation in the context of people who care for children and the importance of caregiving to facilitate parents returning to work.But childcare is one thing. What about people who have caring responsibilities for older members of their family or if you have a family member who is chronically ill, disabled or needs daily help in any other way, shape or form that requires thinking and planning on a weekly basis?Back in Episode 15 we talked to Nick Luck about parenting a child with a chronic illness as his daughter, Xanthe, has cystic fibrosis, and Nick was open about the fact that his wife Laura, managed the majority of Xanthe’s care and medical arrangements. Today we’re hearing another perspective.Cheryl Caves is Operations Manager at the European Breeders Fund and has worked in and around the stud and bloodstock industry for 25 years. She comes from a non-racing background in Bristol and had no connection to racing before starting her studies at The National Stud. Cheryl has 2 kids, a husband who was in the military when said children were small and two parents with disabilities: her mother is deaf and her father is blind. As you’ll hear, there have been points in Cheryl’s life when her parents have required her help whilst her partner has been posted abroad and she had 2 very small children. Unsurprisingly, this has required significant organisational skills. No wonder she works in operations. Oh, and she also sits on the Women in Racing committee and is in charge of the Women in Racing Mentoring Programme. If you need something doing - as they say - ask a busy woman. So this episode is about the ‘sandwich generation’. Some of you will recognise the pressures that many people - often women -  face when caring both for children and parents, often with additional medical needs. Enjoy this one.    Useful linksIf you're not familiar, have a look at the Women in Racing Mentoring Programme (the Mum Mentoring Programme is coming soon!)Check out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!

Welcome to Part 2 of our conversation with Eleanor Boden, Lucy Gurney, Susannah Gill and Tallulah Wilson!If you haven’t listened to the first part of this conversation and you've got time to do so, maybe go back one episode and do just that, but either way, here’s a little recap on a few things about these 4 women, who’ve all had a big part to play in the work of Women in Racing and Racing Home:  Lucy’s daughter Francesca arrived 6 weeks prematurely and was in neonatal ICU, Eleanor had a planned caesarean then her son Angus spent a few days in NICU too, Tallulah herself developed sepsis post-natally and was re-admitted to hospital, and Susannah had a 48 hour labour followed by a caesarean section, so it’s fair to say that becoming a parent isn’t always a walk in the park…We discussed a lot in this episode, including the subject of changing your job whilst pregnant and why everyone has an opinion on how you should parent, but this part of the conversation started with a chat about maintaining your identity when you become a mother. How do you not become a person that feels like your entire life consists of feeding, changing, bathing, soothing and filling the washing machine?Useful linksIf you're not familiar, have a look at the Women in Racing Mentoring Programme (the Mum Mentoring Programme is coming soon!)Check out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!

The Racing Home podcast is back! Next week marks the start of the Cheltenham Festival 2025 so in advance of that, we're here with the first episode of a new season of the podcast. Our guests this week will be familiar to many of you: Lucy Gurney is the current chair of Women in Racing and, alongside Tallulah, is one of the rocks on which Racing Home is built. Tallulah Wilson, Susannah Gill and Eleanor Boden have all joined Naomi on the podcast previously before they had children (Susannah was in fact pregnant at the time of her first appearance!), and if you haven't listened to those then it's well worth checking out Episodes 1, 7 and 11.All of our guests this week have had babies relatively recently and have now got little people in their lives between the ages of 5 months and 2 years. Eleanor Boden is Education, Development and Careers Programme Lead for the Horseracing Industry People Board and has a 6 month old son called Angus. She returned to work 10 weeks after having him and changed jobs whilst she was heavily pregnant. Lucy Gurney is Community Engagement Manager at Racing Together, and, as mentioned, is also the chair of Women in Racing. Her daughter Francesca is just over a year old but was born 6 weeks prematurely. Lucy came back to work recently, just before Fran’s 1st birthday. Tallulah Wilson is Head of International Partnerships at UK Tote Group and was chair of Women in Racing before Lucy, so she’s also been heavily involved in Racing Home. Her daughter, Otillie, is 9 months old and Tallulah is returning to work right about now.Susannah Gill also works at the UK Tote Group, where she is Communications and Corporate Affairs Director. As she put it, she has "kept Johnny alive for just over 2 years" but he’s been - again, as Suz put it - in the safe hands of nursery since he was 4 months old, when she returned to work.These four joined Naomi to discuss what motherhood is REALLY like: having a premature baby, changing jobs whilst heavily pregnant, judgement around the length of your mat leave, and the things that people don't tell you in advance of giving birth.This was a long conversation so we've split it in two, and Part 2 will be out in a couple of weeks!Useful linksCheck out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!

Today is the start of Royal Ascot 2024! One of our guests today is making his Royal Ascot presenting debut this week, and we’re delighted to bring you this podcast in a week women in racing from across the world are being showcased and celebrated once again. We’ve talked a lot about parents in this series, particularly mothers, and we’ve heard from a fathers too. But if we want to create a working landscape where people are all pulling in the same direction, we need to look at things from the perspective of a younger generation, in particular young men. They are the sons, brothers, nephews and friends of women in the racing industry now, and they’re the fathers of the future. What they hear, what they think and what they do in their lives matters. I’m joined to dig into this topic by Callum Helliwell, a reporter for Sky Sports Racing who it’s fair to say is part of the “younger generation” and as you’ll hear is incredibly insightful, wise and eloquent on this subject, and Lyndon Roberts, the Head of Inclusion at the British Horseracing Authority, who’s worked in various sports for over 10 years and is a father himself.   Useful linksCheck out the Racing Home website here (there's LOADS of useful info there)Read the Women in Racing and Oxford Brookes research on working mothers in horseracing hereAnd finally, the Women in Racing website is here too!