Jamie to ride for hospice

AN Upper Beeding man will be riding in a charity flat race on Grand National Day- even though he had never sat on a horse until five years ago.

By The Newsroom

Published 26th Mar 2008, 08:49 BST

Updated 8th Jun 2018, 03:21 BST

Jamie Plummer (26) , a buyer for the construction industry, is one of the final ten chosen for the 2008 John Smith's People's race on April 5 at Aintree.

From thousands of applications received, the race organisers intiially whittled the field down to 32 novice riders.

They attended gruelling assessment weekends at the British Racing School in Newmarket and the Northern College of Racing in Doncaster to win a place in the starting line-up.

Jamie's charity is the St Barnabas House hospice in Worthing, where his father-in-law was cared for by community nurses more than four years ago before he died from cancer.

He has been riding at Nick Gifford's stables at Findon and will ride one of his horses on the day.

If he is first past the post he will earn the charity 50,000, but even if he is last, St Barnabas will stil get 5,000.