A horse racing fanatic has won a writing competition based on the sport.
Laura McKibben, 19, from Broken Cross, won first prize in the under 26 category of the Wills Writing Awards, a fiction writing competition based on horse racing.
Her winning piece, “After I’m Gone”, was published in the Racing Post. She was also presented with a trophy by world-famous author Jilly Cooper at Newmarket Racecourse last month.
She said: “I have always written fiction since I was little. I have also always been really into horses, having ridden for 10 years and more recently started going to the races.
“I love everything about the sport: the atmosphere and the excitement of the race, the atheleticsm of the jockey and horses, it’s brilliant.”
Laura is a former Fallibroome Academy student who is now studying history and sociology at the University of Manchester.
She also dreams of writing fiction full time.
Although she has travelled all over the country to races, she admits to not being much of a gambler.
She said: “My friends find it quite unusual that being so young and a girl that I love horse racing, but they still ask for tips on the big races. Sadly for them and me I am not very good as predicting the winners and lose more than I win. But betting isn’t what I love the sport for.”
Laura lives on Princess Way with her mum Kathryn, dad Sean and sisters Emily, 24, and Victoria, 22.
As well as the trophy Laura scooped a £1,250 cash prize and an invite to a literary lunch with Jilly Cooper later in the year.
Laura donated £250 of her prize money to the Injured Jockeys Fund.
The Wills Writing Awards is a competition run by the Martin Wills Memorial Trust which commemorates the journalist and amateur jockey who died in 1992, aged 39.
