The Jockey Club’s new Senior Steward Baroness Dido Harding accepts “our sport continues to face some significant challenges” but also insisted she is “utterly convinced that our future is a positive one”.
Baroness Harding, 56, who has been on the Board of Stewards since the end of 2017, having been appointed a Member of The Jockey Club in 2004, succeeds Sandy Dudgeon, who has held the position since July 2019.
Starting out a five-year term, she said it was “a huge honour and privilege” to take up this role, having previously ridden 25 winners as an amateur jockey and been a successful owner, with 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Cool Dawn her leading light in that sphere.
“The role of the Board of Stewards is to be both support and challenge to The Jockey Club’s leadership team, to protect and champion the organisation and our sport and to ensure we all live up to our mission to further the long-term good of racing,” said Baroness Harding.
“Sandy has led The Jockey Club as Senior Steward through some extraordinary and unprecedented times over the last five years. He will be a very difficult act to follow and it is a huge honour and privilege to succeed him.
“There is no doubt that our sport continues to face some significant challenges. The impact of the pandemic and inflation on the cost of living is creating issues for every sports and entertainment business, and we are no different.
“Changing attitudes to animal welfare, the role of horses in modern life and our increasingly urban society, not to mention how technology is changing how all of us spend our leisure time, mean that it has never been more important that we listen to and learn from all those who come racing and contribute to or follow the sport.”
Finding a successor to outgoing Group Chief Executive Nevin Truesdale is an “immediate priority” but Baroness Harding also hopes to lead the organisation into a bright future.
She added: “My primary focus over the coming years is to encourage all of us at The Jockey Club to deliver the best experiences for and act in the best interests of those who love our sport and the millions of people who visit us at our various locations every year, whether as fans, trainers, jockeys, owners or breeders.
“People from all backgrounds and walks of life have enjoyed a great day out watching horses race for hundreds of years and all across the world.
“British racing, with our incredible diversity of racecourses, history and heritage has been at the forefront of the sport for all that time and I am utterly convinced that our future is a positive one.
“The Jockey Club stages events that capture the hearts and minds of the nation, runs venues that are important contributors to our local communities and we all care passionately about what we do.
“It’s so important, therefore, that our roles on racecourses, at our training centres, The National Stud and in the many support functions is focused on delivering the best possible experiences for all.”
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