Newbury Racecourse CEO

Julian Thick on skipping school, the challenges of communicating the brilliance of the sport to occasional viewers and keeping The Queen happy

I was brought up in Ledbury in Herefordshire and my father and his brothers, who ran a building business, were into point-to-point racing. I very rarely rode as a youngster. I worked out quite quickly that I was neither the right shape, nor had the talent or bravery to be a jockey.

My father would write the same note for me to get off school for racing every time, saying I was on an educational visit. I recall the headmaster saying: “These educational visits – do you think you could let me know which horse will win next time?”

I got into this career via my sister’s Horse & Hound. We had ponies at home, so she was an avid Horse & Hound reader. There was a job advertised in it for a management trainee at Aintree. The job seemed a lot more glamorous than going to work for my father’s building firm. In hindsight, that might have been a bit more lucrative!

So I was lucky to get a start with The Jockey Club and I worked my way up for 20 years.

I became general manager of Kempton Park then I went back to Aintree as managing director, and was there for five Grand Nationals.