
Thurloe Thoroughbreds is leading the way with their excellent initiative to combine racing with supporting charities. Their syndicate Thurloe for Royal Marsden Cancer Charity is donating a share of all prize money to the Royal Marsden Oak Cancer Centre. James and Nicky Stafford tell us more.
We set Thurloe Thoroughbreds up over 25 years ago to form and manage racing syndicates for small groups of people to own horses on both the Flat and over jumps. We have had considerable success and our stars include the 2002 champion Sprinter Kyllachy, dual Tote Gold Trophy winner and top-class hurdler Geos. TheRoyal Ascot Wokingham Stakes winner, Baltic King and the Group-winning fillies Nanoushka, Gracefully, Ruby Rocket and Waterway Run all carried our colours. We have built up a good group of owners from a huge cross section of businesses.
Oliver Pawle, Nicky’s brother, who was instrumental in setting up Thurloe with us and has played a big part in introducing owners, is on the Royal Marsden Oak Cancer Centre’s Appeal Board. He suggested we formed a syndicate to raise funds for this Appeal and Mike Slade, who is Chairman of the Appeal Board and someone we have known through racing for a long time, was keen on the idea and joined the syndicate.

This syndicate, Thurloe for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, has three horses -Buzz is one of these and ran very well for trainer Nicky Henderson during the last National Hunt Season and raised good funds for the Charity. There are two horses to look out for on the Flat this year: Remedium (meaning cure in Latin) and Achelois (Goddess of Healing). The horses are trained with Richard Hannon and Andrew Balding. Buzz has been a star for the syndicate, was second in a Group 1 at Aintree and has earned just under £90k in prize money with 25% of the owners prize money being donated to the Royal Marsden.

We had a very good take-up from our own syndicate members and from other owners, breeders and individuals who thought it was a good way of enjoying racing and at the same time supporting a good cause. The sport has benefited as well, as it is being seen to support charities that are so important to the community.