Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am absolutely thrilled and delighted to have been selected to take part in the Ladies only Charity Flat Race at The Cheltenham Festival.

As a youngster, I was introduced to riding in the hunting fields of Ireland with the Co Limerick, Co Clare and Scarteen hunts.  I was an active member of the University of Cork's equestrian team and competed internationally with the Irish Universities' team.  I have instructed for the Pony Club and competed as an event rider.  I gave up riding twenty years ago and only returned to the saddle two years ago with riding in a charity race as my goal.  Needless to say, my riding ability is not what it used to be and it has been a steep learning curve adapting to race riding and more importantly, accepting that 'old age' is no asset when on top of a race-horse !!  I have been fortunate to have been able to ride out with probably the best race-horse trainers in both Ireland (Andrew McNamara and Ronnie O'Leary) and in England (Jonjo O'Neill and Richard Mitchell) and I am hugely grateful to them for affording me the opportunity to do so.  I also have had some fantastic training from one of racing's great legends - Stan Mellor, who put me through my paces on the mechanical horse. However, the chances of turning me into anything resembling a jockey are fairly remote and a career change at this stage is very unlikely !!

I have enjoyed and continue to do so, the training process.  At the outset, I thought "How difficult can it be ?  I'm fit from all my gym work-outs so, all I need to do is shorten my stirrups a few holes and it will be fine !!"  How wrong I was !!  The fitness required is incredible; the skills to control a horse and the tactics to 'ride' a race are almost impossible to believe. My admiration for jockeys knows no bounds now - they really are the most amazing sports men and women. I ride out every morning followed by swimming 150 lengths - I am hoping that I will manage the 1 mile 5 furlong distance of the race.  It will probably be the most terrifying 4 minutes of my life !! - but I am really looking forward to it.

The real aim of the day, however, is to raise as much money as possible for Cancer Research UK. This is a most worthy cause and is particularly important to me as I lost my mother to cancer in May 2008.  I have also lost some dear and special friends to this dreadful disease and so to be able to raise money for CRUK as a tribute to them would be amazing.  CRUK is the world's leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research.  Their ground-breaking work into prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has saved millions of lives.  They are funded entirely by the public through donations driven by events such as the Ladies Charity Race.

Thank you to everyone who donates to Cancer Research UK through this page.  If you would like to publicise this event in order to raise more money please do so, as all donations will be gratefully received.

With thanks

Germaine