Riding A Dream Academy Student Bids To Emulate Khadijah Mellah

Features | 29^th July 2024

Find out how 18 year-old Aamilah Aswat has been preparing for the Markel Magnolia Cup...

Aamilah's Journey To Riding In The Magnolia Cup

Riding A Dream Academy graduate Aamilah Aswat is preparing for the biggest day of her career when she lines up in this year’s Markel Magnolia Cup on Thursday 1^st August at Goodwood Racecourse.

Aamilah’s journey into horse racing began when she was just eleven years old after she first experienced riding on a racetrack with the Pony Racing Authority. Her passion for the sport and ambitions to be a jockey have since been supported by the Riding A Dream Academy, co-founded by previous Magnolia Cup winner Khadijah Mellah, which aspires to bring young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and disadvantaged communities into British horseracing.

Since graduating from the Academy and the Foundation Course at the British Racing School, Aamilah has worked at the yard of Grand National winning trainer, Kim Bailey, near Cheltenham and has been training hard for the race.

Khadijah caught up with Aamilah ahead of the race to find out how her preparations were going…

Aamilah will ride Jungle Run, trained by Tom Clover in the Magnolia Cup and said:

“I am really grateful to Tom Clover and the owners for letting me ride Jungle Run. I’ve had a spin on him up Warren Hill in Newmarket and got a bit of a feel for him – he’s class, such a dude and a bit of a character too and it’s good to have got to know him ahead of the race.”

Despite acknowledging that this will be a step up from her days of Pony Racing, the amateur jockey shares that she ‘Can’t wait for the race, I’m absolutely buzzing.’

A Life Changing Experience

After landing the race in 2019, Khadijah Mellah revealed that “riding in the Magnolia Cup at Goodwood changed my life”.

Khadijah captured the eyes of the world when she won in spectacular style having learned to ride at the Ebony Horse Club, a club that aims to transform young lives through horses in south London’s most disadvantaged communities.

Inspired by her own experiences, she co-founded the Riding A Dream Academy with the British Racing School to support other young riders from marginalised backgrounds or disadvantaged communities to achieve their dreams.

Ahead of Aamilah’s big day, Khadijah shared that she “can’t wait to see Aamilah compete in this year’s race. The most important thing is for her to enjoy the incredible experience – the buzz, the crowd and the race itself.

“The whole aim when we set up the Academy was to support other young people from diverse ethnic communities into racing and so it will be such a special day to see one of our former students compete on the racetrack and make that dream come true. We are so incredibly grateful to Goodwood who have reserved a place for an Academy student in each Magnolia Cup going forwards so this is, thanks to them, another amazing chapter in the Academy’s history.”