What led you to starting the Old Gold Racing syndicate?

Our aim was to answer a very simple question – how to get more racehorses into training. Certainly in the UK, we need more horses in training, because otherwise by definition it’s a declining sport. It gives more business to trainers, and more job opportunities for racing staff. We’re trying to open racing up to people with a low entry price, as one of the main barriers to racehorse ownership is cost.

We use technology to deliver the experience of owning a racehorse for considerably less money, and therefore bringing more people into the industry. We also try to host events for our 50,000 members. We had over 100 people at Cartmel on Wednesday, we’ll have 200 people at a Royal Ascot preview night in Windsor with Francesca Cumani in June, and probably 500 people at Cheltenham in November.

What is the technology that you use?

We’ve built an app that provides weekly updates on horse progress and, when there’s a runner, we have a live feed from the racecourse paddock where the trainer and jockey can give us their thoughts before and after the race. They get to see the horse trotting up the next morning as well.

The app can really educate people on everything that is going on with their horse behind the scenes. It takes so much to get a horse to the track and there’s a lot that can go wrong, so they see it every step of the way. Our technology allows us to speak to tens of thousands of people at the same time, while still keeping it personal.

I think it’s really important for people to have real connections as well as online ones. My business partner is the tech man; he would be very happy to be described as a geek! He writes the code and deals with that side of things, and I go to the races and meet our members. In the real world, people can apply for yard visits, which we do a few times a year.

We organise a breakfast or lunch with one of our trainers, and then our members can see the yard and their horses. Sometimes we’ll plan a trip to the local racecourse afterwards as well. We’re dealing with real horses, so it’s important that we spend time in the real world as well as connecting through our app.

It seems like there’s a real sense of community with your syndicate?

I go racing as much as I can when we have a runner, because I want to meet as many members as I can. We’ve got a community with our syndicate and people have made new friends. We’ve even got a few relationships! I see more of our members now than I do of my family and friends! When you do get a horse that does something amazing, like Apple Away winning the Sefton, you really feel it then. Everyone is so pleased to be part of it. Only a community can have a sense of euphoria, and that’s what we’re trying to build.

Is there a story behind the syndicate name?

The reason we’re called Old Gold Racing, is because my great-grandfather was a brewer, and he was the director of a brewery called Hunt Edmunds in Banbury. His silks were old gold, with a white belt and a white cap. The old gold was the colour of their summer ale, the belt was the froth rising, and the cap was the head on the top of the beer.

He had a horse during World War II named Paladin, who was favourite to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times. On two occasions he didn’t run, and then in 1945 he jumped the last fence in first place and then was pipped on the line! So this is the family’s attempt to finally win it!

Tell us about your expansion into Ireland with your new horse, Fedneys Park.

With Fedneys Park, we poll our members a lot and ask them what they want, so we bought her with Anthony Bromley. At 82,000gns, she’s the most expensive horse that we’ve bought. Our budget was 80, but we always allow Anthony to go one bid over. We learned from eBay, that if you bid on an item for £1.01, you’re more likely to get it than if you just go for £1!

We were thrilled to be able to send her to Henry de Bromhead and she’ll run in a bumper later this year. Eventually we would like more horses in Ireland, it would just be fantastic. We would also like to expand into France - Amanda Zetterholm is on our radar.

With such big numbers in your syndicate, it must generate a lot of income for the industry?

We have 50 horses in training, we’ve given £75,000 to charity with our charity syndicate that we do every Christmas and, between British and Irish bloodstock we’ve spent £1.5 million, so we’re trying to make a positive impact in racing. We had a runner at Windsor on Monday and had 50 people in a box, so we’re bringing more people to the races.

For a while, I was quite nonchalant about prize money, which is quite a big issue in this country. I thought that if you’ve got 2,500 people in a horse, and you win £25,000, they’d all get £10 and they wouldn’t really mind, but I was wrong. What we found is that people would use that money to buy more shares in horses. The money is cycled back into racing, which is important.