Stud manager

Tracy Vigors runs the Hillwood Stud with husband Charlie, and takes in top-class racehorses for their holidays

- Kate Johnson

It’s always been horses for me, all my life. I grew up on a stud farm in Ireland, and I loved the mare-and-foal side of it. I told the careers advisor at school, whom I’d never met before, that I love photography and horses. She said, “You’re not bright enough to be a photographer and you’ll never make any money with horses”.

I came over here when I was 19 to do a three-month course at a stud; that was over 20 years ago! I met Charlie when I was a stud groom for his mother. He’d worked for Nicky Henderson for seven years working his way up to assistant trainer, and for Godolphin in America. We branched out and set up our own business at Hillwood.

We’ve doubled the size of the house, added walkers, gallops, a lunge pit, and nursery and all-weather paddocks. We have 150 acres, 32 full-time broodmares and, allowing for maidens and resting mares, we have 22–23 foals a year. We’re a big nursery stud farm, we do a lot of pre-training and spelling [holidaying] and we’re known for bringing sick-and-sorry horses back to health.