Introduce yourself and tell us what your current role is.

My name is Ben Ryan, I’m 21-years-old and I work as an Editorial Assistant for At TheRaces. I’ve been in this role since early March this year and the past six-months or so has absolutely flown by! As an Editorial Assistant, I work with a small team to sub edit, often price up, and publish a wide variety of primarily betting and analysis-focused articles which support and cross-promote our channel partner, Sky Sports Racing.

I’ve had encouragement for personal development in the role too, particularly by doing more of my own feature writing since joining. For example, a piece of the appeal of Royal Ascot from a ‘younger’ attendee’s perspective and my recent collation of five British Champions Day highlights for our dedicated microsite – Click here.

What was your first step into racing?

I’d been a racing fan a few years before this, but in 2021, I contacted Park House Stables in Kingsclere because I wanted to set my final year media project at college in a racing yard – the nearest one was none other than Andrew Balding’s! I reached out not even expecting a response at the time, but I was given permission to plan the project and everyone was so welcoming, accommodating and their love for the horses was plain to see the moment we got inside – that is what struck me most.

I knew very quickly that I wanted to keep this sort of environment close to my everyday work as nothing had sparked a feeling like it before. Whilst at Park House, a work rider asked if I’d heard of the Racing Media Academy and then said I should “look into it and just go for it!” I spent time putting in the research and trying to upskill with temporary work for a while afterwards. The first step into racing at Kingsclere put me on my current career path as, in 2025, I applied for the Racing Media Academy and was successful.

What does the racing community mean to you?

This might be an unusual answer, but to me at the core of the racing community is a group of incredibly committed workers. Like-minded people who, no matter their role, have a desire to get the results and, with that, give as much to the sport as they can.

There hasn’t been one race day where I haven’t bumped into people that I had met on course previously with an odds-on chance of seeing someone from the Careers in Racing Youth Collaboration Group (YCG) plus a few of the Racing Media Academy alumni. Although the industry is vast, it is near impossible to get through a race day without some catch ups that you didn’t expect!

What was it about the horseracing industry that appealed to you?

There truly is no other sport like it. You get the odd occasion where it feels like an entire enclosure is backing the same horse/jockey combination and the roar when they either jump into the lead or hit the front on the flat is unparalleled.

Like many fans of the game, the Grand National is the one that got me ‘hooked.’ Growing up, mum would always cut the sweepstake kit out of the paper and put the names of the 40 runners in a bowl, and we’d all pick out three and get a small stake on those. A method with 0% strike rate in terms of picking the winner of the race, which has only marginally improved with experience, but the excitement in the build up to 5.15pm – as was the off back then – was always palpable.

The 2015 renewal will always special to me as that was when my deep interest in racing started thanks to the mighty Many Clouds.

What advice would you give to someone looking to get involved in horseracing?

I can only give advice from a media/digital point of view, as I’m not hands on with the horses, but I would say definitely say to look at all the programmes available to get into the industry and make one your ultimate target a while before applications open. Applications for the Racing Media Academy and the British Horseracing Development Programme are open for quite a long time from memory, but you might be best placed to succeed by considering how you want to present yourself and your work weeks or months in advance.

Careers in Racing facilitate lots of Explore Racing Days throughout the year as well as the Step On Track Programme where you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the full running of a race day and meet industry professionals with widely varied backgrounds.

The Careers in Racing team also made a Youth Collaboration Group which is a creative and social space for younger people to share ideas about the industry; mixing people with hands-on horse experience, people who would like to gain such experience, those who prefer the media, broadcast and/or marketing angles and others who are still figuring out what exactly they would like to do. I would let the Careers in Racing team know what you are interested ingoing for, and they will be able to get you on the right path.

What do you find most rewarding about working in the horseracing industry?

The reward from my own role comes from getting tipping articles together on time, giving site users and punters the best chance of backing winners at the best prices. It is very satisfying when an ATR tipster analyses a race and it plays out, almost to the letter, on the track. More generally, though, the most rewarding moments are seeing the stable staff reacting to one of their horses coming home in front. If the animals are the stars of the show, the staff are not far behind at all. With the volume of racing fixtures in the UK and Ireland – at all levels – yards are inevitably going to experience more luckless days than glory ones. When everything does go right, the euphoria it brings to everyone so deeply involved is quite incredible to see.

Why do you think it is important to celebrate Black History Month within the horseracing industry?

It is important for everybody, no matter their background, ethnicity, or race, to know that there are amazing opportunities in this industry. Personally, it has never entered my head that because of my race I am at some kind of disadvantage when going for a position in the racing industry, equally, I’m not blind to the fact that people from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds are hugely underrepresented on the face of the sport.

That point underlined by a story such as Aamilah Aswat becoming the first female black jump jockey to win a race in Britain at the beginning of the year (in the history of the sport).

The whole concept of the Racing Media Academy was planted with a seed of diversity and inclusion, likewise the Riding A Dream Academy, so there are clusters of people involved who recognise how vital it is for all to get a fair crack at the whip.

The way we are going to see racing diversify at a rate even slightly more comparable to other sports is by young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups going for the roles and courses they want in the industry.

It is not difficult to look at the sport from the outside, or even from the inside, and think it still lacks proper inclusion. If you can make that thought the catalyst for your own contribution, though, you become a part of its progression. Racing is not a closed book to anybody; the common denominator are the incredible horses and that is a shared starting point for us all.

If you would like to find out more information on the Youth Collaboration Group (YCG), British Horseracing Development Programme or Racing Media Academy, please find the links below.

🔸 Youth Collaboration Group  

🔸 British Horseracing Development Programme

🔸Racing Media Academy