How a bet with a mate at the age of 41 turned this 'porker' into an owner

Anthony Ward-Thomas's colours have become increasingly familiar in recent seasons with horses like smart chaser Highway One O One and Kempton Grade 2 winner Highway One O Two. Here he tells Peter Thomas about his unusual path into ownership.

For me, the reason for becoming an owner was quite simple: I wanted to become a rider. I'd ridden bits and pieces all my life, growing up in Essex and Ireland, but I'd been busy running the removals and transport business I set up when I was 27 and never got round to doing it properly, so when somebody bet me at the age of 41 that I wouldn't ride in a point-to-point when I was 42, it seemed a good time to start.

I was a bit of a porker at 13 and a half stone, but I got into training, lost the weight and bought myself an old schoolmaster called Blayneys Privilege and got the bug, even though I was described by Mackenzie and Selby after my first ride, at Hackwood in 2002, as "the impossibly inadequate Anthony Ward-Thomas".