Women in Racing (WiR) is delighted to announce that Baroness Dido Harding, Senior Steward of The Jockey Club, has joined its flagship mentoring programme.
As an amateur rider Dido rode 25 winners in point to points and hunter chases, and her horse Cool Dawn won the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup. She has been a member of the Jockey Club since 2004, and previously sat on the board of Cheltenham Racecourse and Racecourse Holdings Trust (now Jockey Club Racecourses). Beyond racing, Dido’s career spans retailing with Sainsbury and Tesco, telecoms as CEO of TalkTalk and the public sector in the NHS and Bank of England.
Dido can support mentees on strategy, business change and transformation, sitting on and chairing boards and on juggling career, family and riding.
The WiR mentoring programme is the only official initiative of its kind in the racing industry. A free benefit to all WiR members, applying to take part in the programme is simple via the WiR website mentoring page. Since its inception the programme has supported the growth and development of 125+ mentoring partnerships. Its alumni includes women working at the highest levels of the sport.
With more than 40 mentors based across Great Britain and beyond representing all aspects of racing, and giving their time and expertise for free, it is a fantastic opportunity for women working in the industry to seek advice on their careers, increase their network and professional development.
Each mentoring partnership is supported in confidence by Cheryl Caves on the WiR committee, who said: “We are delighted to be welcoming Baroness Dido Harding to the programme as a mentor, following our successful event at Dalham Hall in August where she gave fascinating insights as part of our panel discussion.
“We were extremely grateful to Dawn Laidlaw and the team at Godolphin for hosting and providing a wonderful backdrop to the day, and to our panellists who gave up their time. The panel discussion touched on broad themes of mentoring and women’s experiences in the racing industry and the panellists gave honest, and entertaining, answers. We have received several new mentoring enquiries following the event and of course we encourage anyone who is interested in finding out more to get in touch. I’m very much looking forward to hosting similar events in 2025.”