'It's the best thing I've ever done' - the former jockey introducing kids to racing

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I've long known that Racing To School (RTS) was out there, doing excellent work on the sport's behalf. I just didn't know how much work it was doing until I joined them at Cheltenham last Wednesday, when they were in charge of 25 kids from year eight at Bournside, a local secondary. 

On the same day, similar groups of schoolchildren were being ushered around two other tracks by the charity's staff. We are apparently just approaching their busiest time of year; in May, 55 such events are scheduled.

Most kids, alas, will still struggle through their school years without the brilliant skive of a day at the races, but RTS is reaching a lot of people and bringing them through the gates. In March last year, they celebrated reaching the landmark of 200,000 participants.

"It's great that it's grown," John Blake, RTS chief executive, tells the Front Runner. "There's a huge demand for it. We take encouragement from the fact that we have so many repeat schools." For those seeking to sign up to the programme, there's a waiting list.

I don't need to explain to you, Front Runner readers, why the kids love it because no one knows better than you how exciting a day at the races can be. Even before the action starts, there's that sense of escaping the normal world and entering a new one with its own odd ways of doing things.

Perhaps the teachers are similarly stimulated or perhaps they're grateful to slip into the role of spectators for the day while Ollie McPhail, RTS's programme director, takes over the teaching. His pupils are surprised to learn he was a jockey, taking his final ride back in the long-ago days of 2008, before they were born.

He had some good days in the saddle but it looks like his new role is an even better fit. He seems a natural educator who wins his audience from an early stage. There is nothing forced about his back-and-forth chat with the youngsters and he gets plenty of answers whenever he asks a question.

"It's the best thing I've ever done," he tells the Front Runner. "Each day's a new challenge, introducing new people to it and hopefully making sure they have a memorable time."

He leads us all into the stewards' room, calling cheerily over his shoulder: "You've got one of these rooms at school." He has a go at identifying which of the 25 would be most familiar with the experience of being carpeted by authority, then tells the story of how he got a seven-day suspension for taking the wrong course.

"I would say the jockey's job is the same as your teacher's job," he continues, inviting the kids to guess the connection. The aim, he adds, is to get the horse to do a particular thing, just as the teacher seeks to get their children to do the same thing ... what is it? 

"Some of you do this thing without much asking, like some horses, the easiest to ride. Some of you take a bit more convincing." Full marks if you worked out the answer: "Try their best."

That would be just about the easiest question posed during the day. Each child gets an activity workbook, the fruit of many years of refining, in which all sorts of challenges are set.

There's a lot of practical maths. How many pounds are there in 2kg? Measure the parade ring and say how many racehorses can use it safely at the same time if each horse measures 2.5m and a gap of a metre is needed between them. Plan a diet for a jockey who can take in only 800 calories per day. Measure this image of a 2.5m-long racehorse and work out how long in centimetres are these distances used in official results: a head, a neck, half a length.

Joy of joys, RTS is even introducing 12-year-olds to the basic principles of handicapping, asking how the weights from a given result should be changed if the horses are all to dead-heat when they next meet. The horses named in the example are Mondul, Paxford Jack, Drama King, Yankie Lord ... Hmmm, all winners ridden by one O McPhail, back in the day.

You get to design your own silks, then work out how much Weatherbys will charge you to put them together. There's a map which allows you to work out the three racecourses nearest your home and a two-page spread outlining all the different roles available in the racing industry.

It's quite a lot of work but McPhail makes it fun and the kids get to race each other up the sacred turf. They stay long enough to see the first two races. One girl looks absolutely stunned to have picked both (28-1) and Willaston (33-1).

Caribean Boy: he was picked out by one of the children during a visit to CheltenhamCredit: Edward Whitaker

For reasons you will readily understand, the RTS course makes no mention of betting. It seems a pity, though. Nothing hones your maths skills like working out the return on a £2.50 each-way double at 13-2 and 9-1 with a 5p Rule 4 (both winners, assume 1/5 the odds a place).

As we return to the grandstand, Blake points out: "They're not on their mobile phones, they're interacting with each other and working as a group. We want to bring out the confidence in them, so that when they go back to the class, they can apply maths in the context of what they saw and perhaps have better friendships and better relationships with their teachers."

"It's been a fantastic day, the kids have loved it," says teacher Sarah McCormack. "I've loved it, because there's maths involved - they've had their trundlewheels out, they've been measuring things, they're applying maths in a real environment. 

"And then finishing the day with the races has been a highlight, they've been really involved in it. It's well thought-out, well structured. 

"It's quite tricky to fit fun maths into real life. I try my hardest but it doesn't always work - but it's worked today, without them realising that they're learning."

RTS does not see itself as a recruitment agency of any kind but it's all to the good if it gets the kids seeing their local track as a space that could work for them in one way or another. McPhail says: "We've got a couple of girls here that are interested in going to the British Racing School, which wouldn't even have been on their radar this morning. So perhaps we'll see them back here in a few years."

The net result is hopefully to show that racing can be relevant to everyone. "A lot of our colleagues in the industry talk about racing's social licence," Blake says. "To me, that means being open and transparent and honest and actually doing stuff on the quieter days. 

"It doesn't matter if no one in the outside world doesn't see it. Twenty-five children here are getting something from it, and three teachers. That's something to be celebrated."

Monday's picks

I assumed Zealot (3.00) would be favourite for the 1m2f handicap at Pontefract, thanks to all those 1s by his name, and was gearing up to make the case against him as he switches to turf. But to be honest, 9-2 is pretty tempting.

He obviously has something to prove on such a different surface, since he is now 40lb higher in the ratings than for his only previous effort on turf, when he was beaten ten lengths. That was only seven months ago but a move to Mick Appleby has brought huge improvement, with the step up in trip and the fitting of cheekpieces also helping.

He's only 3lb higher than for his latest success, which strikes me as a bit wimpy. Yes, it was a bunched finish but he won tidily and the runner-up has won since. I'm betting he can cope just fine with the change of surface. A few of his rivals are going to need this.

Zealot15:00 Pontefract

View Racecard

Jky: Billy Loughnane (5lb)Tnr: Michael Appleby

I'll give Rick Blaine (4.55) another chance at Windsor. He seemed to get sucked into chasing too strong a pace at Bath last time and remains on a very good rating for when he finds a more conventionally run race. He's 5-1 and David Probert is an encouraging booking.

Rick Blaine16:55 Windsor

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Jky: David Probert Tnr: Shaun Lycett

Our Monday tipster found an 11-2 winner last week - he shares four more fancies this time 

Three things to look out for today . . .

1. A really strong spring has turned this into Robert Walford's best season yet, 19 winners beating his previous best tally of 15 and his prize-money haul also has a healthy look, for all that it doesn't quite match the year when Walk In The Mill won the Becher and was fourth in the National. Since the start of March, Walford has saddled nine winners from 27 runners. At the time of writing, three of his last four runners have won, all in handicaps, including a 12-1 shot. His only runner on Monday is at Kempton's evening jumps card, where Elios D'Or will be the mount of Harry Kimber in a handicap hurdle for conditional jockeys (7.25). A good-ground horse, Elios D'Or has had the winter off and this is his first outing since October but it seems fair to expect that he'll be ready, given how well the yard is going. He won twice over fences last year and now reverts to hurdles, in which sphere he has had fewer opportunities and can compete from a 10lb lower mark.

2. Tenebrism continues her new career as a sprinter in the Woodlands Stakes (6.40) at Naas, a Listed contest. The hope was that she'd be a miler last year but it didn't work, for all that she won the Prix Jean Prat over 7f. She returned a fortnight ago with a comfortable success at Cork over 6f on testing ground. Now she steps down to the minimum distance for the first time since her debut, also at Naas, more than two years ago. Aidan O'Brien last won this race in 2017 with Washington DC, who was then narrowly beaten in the Palace House on Guineas weekend.

3. O'Brien has strong representation in the following middle-distance fillies' maiden (7.10) on the same card and that could be significant because this was the race in which his Emily Dickinson broke her duck a year ago – and she's now 4-1 favourite for the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. O'Brien's three are headed by Boogie Woogie, the second foal out of Seventh Heaven, who beat Found in the Yorkshire Oaks of 2016. Boogie Woogie is taking her own sweet time to win something but perhaps the fifth time will be the charm. She holds entries in the Oaks and the Irish Oaks. O'Brien also runs the debutant World Peace, an Irish Oaks entrant and the first foal out of How High The Moon, from the family of Quarter Moon and Yesterday.

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Trainer left with 'no choice' but to move string of 36 horses due to rapeseed oil danger 

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