BRS Instructor Glen Sparkes Wins Prestigious Tristram Ricketts Fellowship

One Fellowship is awarded each year by the Horserace Betting Levy Board to the individual who presents the best project for the benefit of UK horseracing. The aim is for the winner to acquire knowledge and experience at home and, preferably abroad and in the process to gain a better understanding of the wider aspects of the sport.

Glen has already embarked on his programme by joining in coaching sessions with Yogi Breisner, the Chef d'Equip of the British Three Day Event Team and he will continue to attend these throughout the year. He is also going to spend time looking at coaching techniques in other sports and plans to visit the football academies at Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Ipswich. He will also spend time looking at how horse related training in the Army is delivered with The King's Troop in London. His foreign experience will include a trip to Australia to look at the training provided for the racing industry in New South Wales and he will spend a week at the North American Racing Academy in Lexington Kentucky with the legendary Chris McCarron.

Last, but not least, he will do a Sports Coaching Course at Ashridge College which will allow him the opportunity to examine and compare the training available in racing with that which is available in other sports.

To have won this Award is a tremendous achievement for Glen and provides him with a unique opportunity which will no doubt benefit The British Racing school and the industry as a whole.

Tristram Ricketts was the Chief executive of the Horserace Betting Levy Board who died in 2007. He was much loved and admired throughout the racing industry and therefore it is right and fitting that his name should continue to be carried forward with this prestigious award. We are confident that Glen will do him proud.