In October last year, we embarked on a project to explore black history in horseracing during Black History Month with the theme of ‘sheroes’. We wanted to represent and recognise the achievements of Khadijah Mellah and Ashleigh Wicheard in their trailblazing wins at Goodwood in the Markel Magnolia Cup as our ‘sheroes’ through a museum display in the Winners enclosure gallery. They join Hayley Turner, Frankie Dettori and A P McCoy and the famous Frankel and tipster and TV personality, Ras Prince Mololulu – all trailblazers in their respective fields.
The winning plate from Sean Levy’s historic win of the QUIPCO 1000 Guineas on mount, Billesdon Brook, in 2018 at the Rowley Mile Racecourse in Newmarket took centre stage throughout October 2023. Levy is considered the first mixed-race jockey to win a British Classic race.
With the help of Khadijah Mellah, we are beginning to bring her vision for a Black History Month archive for horseracing in the museum together. Our project volunteer, Nadia, has been exploring archive and library holdings which has enabled us to improve our referencing and documentation and we are building our archive. Creative Programme Manager, and project coordinator, Sarah Coleman, is overseeing project development and activity and has been working with consultant, Elma Glasgow
‘We’d love to hear from people in racing who’d like to share their stories with us. We are looking to collate and celebrate African diaspora stories in horseracing across all levels of the sport from stable life to going to the races. If you would like to share your stories and any photographic material, we’d love to hear from you.’
Now is a great time for the museum to be launching this part of our Black History Month project as the British Horseracing Authority launched its study into the experiences of ethnically diverse communities working in racing with a survey in Spring this year and we hope that this will inspire people to reach out to us. So far Josh Apiafi has shared some of his research with us and we look forward to building on this.
If you would like to be involved and or have any questions, please contact Sarah at info@nhrm.co.uk
Horseracing’s Sheroes was made possible thanks to funding from Museum Development South East, Arts Council and the Art Fund.
