A 24-YEAR-old woman from Shirenewton who is the youngest racehorse trainer in the UK is celebrating after winning her first race with her mum’s horse.

Living Leader, trained by Grace Harris, won the 5.45pm race at Salisbury on Saturday, July 26 by an astounding 12 lengths.

Ms Harris said: “It is quite unusual to win by such a margin. We had always thought a lot of the horse but it was a good win.”

Ms Harris, who lives near her training yard in Shirenewton, Chepstow, currently has seven horses in full training for racing and rides out on them every day.

It was the third win for Living Leader, owned by Michelle Harris, but the first since Grace took up the training. Ms Harris, who only got her training licence in February, said: “Living Leader was quite quirky to train. He was quite sour when he first came to us, he had fallen out of love with racing. We had to work to get his enjoyment back.”

She said she had to work closely with jockey Michael J Murphy who rode the five-year-old horse to victory at Salisbury. “The jockey doesn’t always know the horse when they first come in so we had to work together well,” she said.

Jan Frapwell, Grace’s nan, said: “It was absolutely brilliant when Grace won her first race. She worked so hard for it, it’s a seven-day week and a hard old game.

Ms Frapwell said Grace has always wanted to be a racehorse trainer, and was spurred on by mother Michelle’s love of horses.