Mary-Ann Sandercock

Mary-Ann grew up on a small farm in East Sussex. Her love of horseracing was sparked when taken regularly to point-to-points by her father as a child. He would park himself in the beer tent, but she’d be glued to the paddock rail admiring the horses. She’d sneak a transistor radio into school to listen to the Epsom Derby (which used to be held on a Wednesday) and the anticipation of watching the Grand National on the telly was as exciting as Christmas.

She lived in Lambourn for 37 years, starting out on her roller-coaster racing life as a trainer’s secretary, before going on to work in admin/commercial/charity roles within the industry. However, throughout the thirty years of doing racing ‘desk jobs’, she continued to ride out most mornings before work and had a few unsuccessful spins on the racecourse as a very ‘boggy’ amateur flat jockey. Drawing on much of her horseracing experience when writing, Mary-Ann says that she’d have loved her first novel, Her Horseracing Dreams, to have been an autobiography – IF only she’d have been a better rider!