LIMERICK LIMERICK Emma White


punter, they need to enjoy themselves. The trainers need to be happy that everything that’s happening on the track is good. The owners need to be comfortable. So, for me, certainly on the first day of racing with me as manager, it was all about talking to people, seeing what people liked about the place, and what people didn’t like about the place. And, believe me, they were up for telling me!” In one sense, this is all new to White but,


in another, it’s not new at all. With no family background in horses or in racing, the Yorkshire woman struggles to pinpoint when or where her passion for horses started – “maybe my dad read Black Beauty to me once, I don’t know” – but she can’t remember a time in her life when horses were not a part of it. “My parents took me to riding lessons,” she says,


“and it went from there. I started show jumping and eventing, riding horses for other people. I couldn’t afford to have my own horse, my parents couldn’t afford a horse, so I learned quite quickly. When you are riding for other people, usually you are riding for them because they can’t ride their horses, so you get a lot of naughty ones.”


She graduated from university with a degree in business and engineering and went to work for British Steel. With her first wage packet, she bought her first horse, a three-year-old unbroken mare, River, and it went from there. “River was brilliant,” she recalls. “She turned into


more of an eventer than a show jumper, but she was lovely. She was three years old when I bought her, and I lost her when she was 29. I had her all that time. She was a complete stalwart of the yard, and I bred some lovely foals from her aſter she retired.” Her husband James’ new job took him to


Cheltenham, and Emma gave up her job in British Steel in order to give show jumping a real go. It went well too. She made a good living, she jumped in Grand Prix, she jumped at Hickstead, she did a few of the Sunshine Tours. “I enjoyed it a lot,” confirms White. “But,


with show jumping, you turn into a little bit of a nomad. You go off to a show, come back, swap your horses, go off to another show. It’s a bit of a traveller’s life. “It’s great fun for a while, and your liver takes a hit! It’s a great crowd, and it’s the same crowd at


RACING TV CLUBMAGAZINE 25


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