CHASING THE DREAM

It’s taken her a while to get there, but racehorse trainer Stella Barclay is finally in the job she always wanted

- Paul Mackenzie

Stella Barclay spent more than 20 years in charge of Darwen library but now she has gone from books to bookies, and she’s living the life she always dreamed of.

‘In my heart of hearts, I always wanted to be in horseracing,’ she said. ‘This is a lifetime’s ambition for me which I never thought I would fulfil.’

She is now one of only a handful of licenced racehorse trainers in Lancashire – and the only woman in the county to run a yard.

Her love of horses started early. She used to help out at a small racing yard near her childhood home in Cowpe in the Rossendale Valley. It’s a passion that was sparked by her father who would take Stella and her sister to race meetings after their mother’s early death.

‘He was interested in racing and he brought us up, so he’d take us to the races – I don’t think mum would have been keen on that at all,’ Stella laughs.

‘We used to help out at a small racing yard round the corner from where we lived. The trainer there taught us to ride and we’d be there before school in the morning and at every chance we had.

‘I was exercising racehorses at the age of ten – that’s before it was compulsory to wear safety gear and there were a few hairy moments. I dread to think what could have happened. I was breaking in young horses without a hard hat.’