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Features
MP First past the post with landslide win!
A West Suffolk MP swapped his safe seat in Parliament for a rather more precarious one on a racehorse when seeing off stiff competition to clinch a landslide victory in a charity race at Newmarket on Saturday 18th August.
Matthew Hancock MP, who won his seat in the 2010 General Election by a sizeable majority, looked equally secure in the saddle when powering home in the Blue Square Cavalry Charge at his constituency’s local racecourse.
His coalition partner on this occasion was the John Gosden trained Dick Doughtywylie who travelled comfortably throughout and needed no three line whip to run out a comfortable winner.
The MP, more used to doing battle in the Commons, rather than on the turf, used the Parliamentary recess to lose 28lb (12kg) in ten weeks in order to be race ready and honed his riding skills at the British Racing School before benefiting from the tutelage of Newmarket trainers Michael Bell and John Gosden.
In scenes evocative of the 2010 landslide election a delighted Hancock described himself as, “knackered” but added, “Coming over that line I couldn't believe it, and that moment when all I could see were the crowds on either side, and the course and no other horses, well, I just thought someone was going to come by me, and I hung on and kicked and we got there."
The one mile charity race was the feature on Saturday’s Horsemen and Heroes Day at Newmarket’s July Course with almost £100,000 raised for the two designated charities, Racing Welfare and the Household Cavalry Operational Casualties Fund.
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