A group of people, many of whom have never met, are now Britain’s most prevalent sponsors of hunter chases.
This article first appeared in the Racing Post on Friday 23rd February.
They interact through the discussion forum of a website dedicated to point-to-pointing called Jumping For Fun (JFF), which is also the title attached to the seven races they hope to back this season. The site was created 19 years ago by Dom Bradshaw, a software wizard who lives near Sheffield and has a passion for the sport.
Dom Bradshaw: software wizard
However, it is forum member and retired engineer Gordon Phillips (pictured above by Richard Weller-Poley) who came up with the idea of sponsoring a hunter chase.
Phillips, who turns 74 in June, says: “I created a fun tipping competition with a few friends on Facebook, and then went to Dom and asked if I could extend it to the forum. The idea was to have an imaginary £100 bank and players would bet £2 win or £1 each-way on the season’s hunter chases. I thought I might get 20 entries, but it turned out to be 80.
“Then I went back to Dom and suggested asking forum members if they would like to contribute money towards sponsoring a hunter chase. He said ‘you won’t get enough for one race’, but I would have been happy with just one.”
Bradshaw agreed to let Phillips float the idea and it took off. Some 70 people have contributed for this season, chipping in any amount they could afford and the cash arrived in single-figure amounts and three-figure sums.
Phillips says: “I’m very proud of the way it’s gone. My motto is it’s better to try and fail than not try at all. It just shows what people can achieve with not too much effort. We backed four races last season and seven this time at racecourses spread around the country. The contributors are all point-to-point enthusiasts.”
Phillips, who lives near Bury St Edmunds and is a regular at East Anglian fixtures, insists it has been a team effort by forum members – permit holder Charlotte Fuller, mother of former jockey Page, acts as cash handler for the project – and through “brilliant” response from racecourses, who allocate a number of tickets to ‘forumites’.
Charlotte Fuller with her prolific winner Moscow Blaze (Caroline Exelby)
He has a number of happy memories from following the sport down the years, including when handing the winner’s trophy to Fiona Needham after her horse Sine Nomine won a JFF-sponsored race at Stratford last spring. Catterick, where Needham is clerk of the course, stages a JFF race on March 6.
Phillips has backed Sine Nomine to win the St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase at Cheltenham next month. Given his ability to extract money out of people, bookmakers ought to pay attention.
