And photographs, if you have any.
Horseytalk.net Special Interview
Amy Starkey
Like all little girls, Amy Starkey was mad about horses.
Except she wasn’t interested in riding them.
She was interested in betting on them.
At three-years-old, she knew all the odds.
At four-years-old, she went to her first race meeting
At five-years-old, she backed her first winner.
At 16 she placed her first bet. She put £10 on Around
the Gale. It won at 20 – 1. She made £200.
Instead of doing her A-levels, she skipped school and went
racing.
At 17 she had her most successful bet. She put £15
on a complicated Lucky 15 bet which involved getting doubles
and trebles and even having an accumulator on four horses.
She won £3,000.
At 19 she was working in a betting shop. She was also buying her first house with all the money she had saved from all her winnings gained from backing horses like Ivory’s Joy, China Castle and Around the Gale.
At 18 she started working for William Hill and at 20 she landed a job with Skybet after gaining a business studies degree at Leeds University.
18 months later she joined the Racecourse Association and then Sedgefield Racecourse.
In 2005 she was head-hunted by Jockey Club Racecourses, the largest racecourse group in the country, and appointed managing director of Huntingdon Racecourse in Cambridgeshire. She was just 24-years-old and, at the time, the youngest managing director of a racecourse in the history of racing in this country.
Today, at just 29-years-old, she is
managing director of Kempton Park Racecourse, Surrey, Europe’s leading floodlit,
all-weather flat and jump racecourse, home of all Desert
Orchid’s major triumphs and one of the most famous
racecourses in the world.
“Joining Jockey Club Racecourses was a fantastic opportunity and privilege for me, and a tremendous step-up in my career,” says Amy. “JCR is the leading racecourse group in Britain, re-investing its profits in racing and so continually developing one of Britain’s greatest sports. Some of the country’s major racecourses are within the group, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Newmarket and Epsom Downs. I feel very much that I am making a contribution at the very centre of the racing industry.”
In 2006 Buckingham Palace named her an “Achiever of the Year”. She has lunched privately with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. She has been shortlisted for the Sportswoman of the Year award.
But the amazing thing is horses, racing and betting were
not Amy’s first love. Her first love was gymnastics.
She started training when she was just two-years-old and
was heading for, possibly, an Olympic career when disaster
struck. When she was 10-years-old, having already competed
successfully not only in this country but also in Russia
and Iceland, she missed her grip on a high bar while training,
crashed to the ground and shattered her elbow.
Doctors told her she would not only be unable to straighten her elbow again, but that she would never compete again as a gymnast.
She proved them wrong on both counts. Today, her elbow is
as straight as anybody else’s. She also went back to
training and continued until she was 14. At 14 she took up
coaching not only gymnastics but also trampolining.
“I am determined,” she says. “If I want
to do something, I do it.”
Gymnastics, she took up because her grand-mother was a coach.
“At six-years-old,” she says, “I was training
20 hours a week. Bars. Beam. Floor. And vault. I was determined.
Even after I smashed my elbow, I was determined to continue.
And I did for a while. But by the time I was 14, it was obvious
I couldn’t go much further so I started coaching instead.
At 19 when I went out to work, I stopped altogether.”
Which is when her interest in horses and betting really took
over.
“My grand-father always enjoyed a bet. My father worked
for William Hill. That’s where it all started,” she
says. “I was born in Yorkshire. As a child, I can remember,
the whole family would go to Ripon Racecourse. We didn’t
go just for the gambling, we went because it was a brilliant
day out.”
Today, not surprisingly, Amy is a firm
believer in taking children – both boys and girls - racing.
“Look at me,” she says. “Everything about
racing is interesting. The odds are educational. Calculating
the odds is brilliant at helping children or anyone improve
their mental arithmetic. It makes you think fast. It keeps
the mind agile whatever career you follow. Going racing also
means being out in the open, in the fresh air, seeing and
assessing the horses and, of course, it teaches you to be
sociable and to be able to meet people. All kinds of people.
From all walks of life.
“Honestly, I wake up every morning and I feel lucky to be alive. To be associated with this sport. To be able to share it with so many people. It’s a fantastic sport.”
It is this belief in racing as well as her enthusiasm that
has helped Amy in the short time she’s been there to
enhance Kempton Park’s status as one of the most exciting
and successful racecourses in the country.
- They’ve staged the Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes, the first-ever European trial for what the Americans call “the greatest two minutes in sport.”
- They have built a reputation for racing theme days and nights: Ladies’ Days, Irish Nights, Bollywood Nights, Bonfire Nights, Best of British Nights. All complete with dining and live music
- They’ve even turned Kempton Park into a popular venue for Hen and Stag Nights
Amy’s next big project: To make the King George VI Steeplechase on Boxing Day even more popular than it is now – and it’s already the major sporting event in Britain at Christmas time.
This year’s reason: The legendary racehorse, Kauto
Star, will be aiming for an unbelievable fifth successive
win.
It’s something that has never been done before. Not
even by the equally legendary, Desert Orchid, who won the
race four times between 1986 and 1990.
“The build-up and the interest will be incredible,” she
says. “I’m determined to make it the most important
day in the sporting calendar.”
But that’s not all on Amy’s
determined wish-list.
Having followed the horses from a child, having worked
in betting shops and having run one of the greatest racecourses
in the world, Amy still has two secret ambitions left.
The first, to ride in a race on a racecourse.
“I did sit on a donkey once on Scarborough beach when
I was five-years-old,” she says. “And I have
had some riding lessons. Not many. Maybe five or six. But
what I would really like to do is to have some proper lessons
with a proper trainer and take part in a Charity Race. That
would be fantastic. So if there is anybody out there who
would be prepared to train me, find me a horse and arrange
for me to take part in a charity race, I’m very interested.”
Amy’s second secret ambition?
“I would love to manage
the Grand National,” she
says. “I would just love to. It would be so exciting.”
So what are the odds?
“About 20 – 1,” she says.
Come on, Amy, even a child of three knows the odds are
much better than that.