By Craig Robertson, Sunday Post..

Fairytale that begun at Kelso race course

February 2006

“I’VE had success now so I’m no longer looked on as ‘that crackpot woman in the wheelchair’.
They respect me.”

The words belong to Rhona Elliot — a woman who deserves respect if anyone does.

In September 2004 we told you how racehorse trainer Rhona had come up with the idea to run a horse in the colours of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, so raising money for and awareness of that terrible condition.
It was a grand plan all right but most people told Rhona — who trains at The Yett at Hownam, about 11 miles from Kelso — that it simply couldn’t be done. They didn’t think people would support it, they wondered where she would get suitable horses and doubted she would get the financial backing.

The sceptics simply drove Rhona on and made her determined to prove them wrong. If they said it couldn’t be done then she would do it anyway.

For Rhona, it was very personal. Seventeen years ago she herself was diagnosed with MS and has battled against it ever since.

Over that time the MS slowly worked away at her and — although, amazingly, she hid it from everyone but her husband Peter for 12 years — it eventually took away her ability to ride in races and restricted her walking. What it couldn’t take was her spirit.

Rhona wrote to around 50 local people and businesses explaining her venture and asking them to form the Borders MS Racing Club. She managed to persuade friend and breeder Andrew Hollis to lease them a horse for a year. Against all the odds, her plan came to fruition.

In December 2004, the first MS horse, a four-year-old hurdler named Diamond Mick, trotted onto Kelso racecourse to the cheers of around 50 members of the new syndicate and local MS sufferers.
With local amateur jockey Rose Davidson on his back in the orange, white and black colours of the MS Society, the bookies didn’t give Mick much chance — after all he’d never won in 15 previous attempts. They hadn’t reckoned with a fairytale ending though and that’s just what we got as Diamond Mick romped home to victory.

Rhona’s husband Peter, himself a steward at the Borders racecourse, reckons he has never heard any horse get a bigger reception at Kelso than Mick did when he returned to the winner’s enclosure that day.
However that wasn’t the end of Rhona’s fairytale, it was just the end of the beginning. The MS syndicate has gone from strength to strength, on and off course.

Diamond Mick won again at the beginning of 2005 and was joined in the syndicate by two other horses, Diamond Jim and Where’s The Nurse. The latter was a joking reference to their campaign to have a dedicated MS nurse appointed to the Scottish Borders, an area with a higher incidence of the condition than anywhere in the world.

Their star performer was nearly lost to the syndicate when Mick’s owner put him up for sale at the end of the first year. Everyone held their breath and were delighted when the reserve price wasn’t met and Mick was leased back for another season.

“We now have a club of friends across the Borders,” says Rhona. “It has blossomed and gone into other areas. Instead of just focusing on their MS, people have an interest to bring them together.
“We’ve held a fashion show, around 30 of us had a fantastic weekend in Northern Ireland, an eight-strong group of Riding for the Disabled has grown out of this too and we are planning a quiz for May and hope the likes of Tony McCoy and Martin Pipe will take part.
“Above all, it has brought so many people with MS together but it has also brought us together with so many people that don’t have MS and that has created such a better understanding all round.”

Another success story is Rose Davidson who is now the leading lady amateur jockey in the UK, with ten winners this season from just 40 rides.
“You know that you are riding for the cause but it’s not extra pressure as such,” she told me. “It does make it all the more special when you win though.
“My ex-boyfriend’s mother had MS quite badly and it is nice to be able to do something to help. All winners are special but when Diamond Mick won that first time at Kelso it was wonderful because I knew what it meant to people.”

Jane Currie, from Monteviot near Jedburgh, has MS and is a member of the Borders branch of the MS Society. She has been swept up in the racing bug that has now bitten so many. Jane runs the website for the MS Borders branch www.msborders.org.uk and keeps everyone up to date with the syndicate’s progress.
“My physio told me about it,” remembers Jane. “She knew Rhona and also knew that I was interested in horses. I’d never been racing before but now I’m absolutely hooked.
“This raises the profile of MS and has made people start asking questions about the condition. We had a strong local branch anyway but this has been so exciting.
“The MS Racing Club has had a huge effect on my life. It has been fantastic. It has brought us fun, friendship and freedom.”

However, the nature of racing has meant that it has not all gone as they would have wished. Last April, Where’s The Nurse took a heavy fall in a race at Kelso and had to be put down. It was a huge blow to everyone involved.
Ironically, Rose Davidson was riding another horse in the same race and fell at the same fence as Where’s The Nurse.
“I knew another horse had come down at the same time,” remembers Rose. “But it was only when I was on my way to hospital that I heard it was Where’s The Nurse. It was such bad news.”
“Those with MS actually accepted it better than most,” says Rhona. “Perhaps because they have to accept so many downs in their lives.
“MS is so terrible because it progresses so slowly and so painfully. Things are taken from you bit by bit. It’s very cruel.”

The Scarvagh House Stud in Northern Ireland — where the branch members went on the weekend trip last summer — kindly offered a replacement mare for the stricken Where’s The Nurse and so five-year-old Scarvagh Diamond joined the team.
She made her first ever racecourse appearance at Newcastle last month and incredibly she too won first time out in the MS colours. That win qualified her for a final at Sandown in March and so the Borders MS Racing Club will now venture into the racing heartlands of the south of England. It is even more than Rhona dared dream of when she conceived of the project.

“Not too many people had much faith in me when I started this but I will always be grateful to those that did. My accountant Andrew Hamilton and Judy Eglinton, vice-chair of the MS branch, were a great help and the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe were among the first to sign up to the syndicate.

“We’ve been talked about all over the place and it has raised awareness of MS so much. I feel I’ve made my point and have a feeling of personal achievement. I’m accepted on racecourses for what I can do, not for my condition.
“My MS has got worse of course, it is the only way it can go. It is very frustrating, soul destroying in fact.
“MS is a day to day thing so I can’t look too far forward, it is so dependent on my own condition and the support I get. I still have other points to prove though and hope to carry on and improve. When I can’t, I hope other people will carry it on for me.”

Anyone interested in joining the syndicate can contact Rhona on (01573) 440268