Charity syndicate founder

Phil Hawthorne runs the Good Racing Company, which allows individuals and corporations to buy membership of a horse in training, and which directs all profits from racing to partner charities

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It all began about three years ago when Rob Burrow MBE had a charity match at the Leeds Rhino rugby league ground. Rob is a former Leeds Rhino player who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2019. I was at the match, I’m a passionate rugby league and horseracing fan, and I had an idea to bring the two sports together and see what we could do to help raise awareness and funds for MND.

I think I’d had a bit too much red wine but I decided that what we should do is go and buy a horse! I spoke to former jockey Mark Dwyer who led me to Henrietta Knight and we selected a very well-bred horse by Kayf Tara. We named him Burrow Seven after Rob who always played at number seven. 

In five or six weeks, we built the framework of the idea and a website.
We also asked sports people and those with a social media presence to become brand ambassadors – we’re always on the lookout for more ambassadors to post and promote our content. For the launch day, we had Rob and his family there, and we sold lots of memberships.

Unfortunately, a few weeks before Burrow Seven was due to run, he was injured.