Class of '25
Victoria Staughton
Victoria is a 21-year-old student from Essex. Her passion for media and content creation stems from her Instagram account where she shares her riding journey with her horse Clove. As a result, she has worked with various equestrian companies and thoroughly enjoyed creating content for them. Additionally, as an Equine Performance and Business Management student, it has tied her passion for horses and media together, leading her to discover the Racing Media Academy. Throughout the previous year, she has been a member of the Youth Collaboration Group with Careers in Racing in which she has written race previews and attended race days. She is excited to delve deeper into her career with the Racing Media Academy and looks forward to gaining knowledge and networking with like-minded people.
Jake Wilkes
Jake Wilkes is 23 years old and is about to graduate as a sports journalist, after studying for three years at the University of Gloucestershire. He worked in an office job after he finished his A-Levels but decided to pursue his dream career in the sports journalism industry. While at university he has regularly written for publications such as the Cheltenham Post, Gloucestershire Live and for Old Gold Racing’s weekly newsletter. Despite his young age, he has interviewed leading experts in the field, such as Ruby Walsh, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson.
Before he decided to go to university, he had applied for the Racing media Academy but was unsuccessful. This rejection prompted him to tidy up his skills and learn to be a more complete, well-rounded journalist. He is hugely excited for his placement with Ascot Racecourse. He is hoping his time with the Racing Media Academy can lead to full-time employment as a horse racing journalist. He currently lives in Ludlow, so moving to London will be a bit of a shock to the system!
Imogen Bridges
Imogen is 23. Along with having family in Ireland who have a history with horses and racing, she has been lucky enough to grow up riding at home in the Kent countryside. Aside from her love of horses she also has an interest in wildlife and storytelling. While carrying out her degree in Television Production, she particularly enjoyed crafting the narrative of her graduate project, ‘Behind the Reins’, which explored the benefits that ponies bring to neurodivergent children and their unique and special partnership. This experience, along with her interest in horses, solidified her motivation to apply for the Racing Media Academy and she is so glad she did! She is really looking forward to her placement with Equine Productions to learn more about their process of creating such beautiful and fascinating documentaries, as well as immersing herself in the world of racing and meeting the other trainees during the training week at the British Racing School in Newmarket.
Lara Partridge
Lara is 25 and lives in Guildford. She is a graduate of the University of Bristol and of the British Racing School. When at university, she started riding out in Epsom and fell in love with horseracing. She is looking forward to the opportunity to meet lots of interesting people across the industry and put some of her creative skills to test with the team at Great British Racing.
Ben Ryan
Ben is a 20-year-old undergraduate student of Global Communication and Media based at the University of Portsmouth. He has been waiting for Racing Media Academy applications to open ever since he heard about the course whilst working on a small filming project at Kingsclere, Park House Stables (the breathtaking training facilities licensed by Andrew Balding), in April last year. It was Grand National won by Many Clouds and jockey Leighton Aspell that gravitated him towards the sport. Knowing nothing at the time about the racehorse, Aintree Racecourse or the prominence of the late Trevor Hemmings’ success stories, something about the National just fascinated him.
Now, from getting trackside on the courses, watching race build-up and analysis, or listening to the trainers explaining horses’ work on the gallops, each part of this sport has continued to intrigue and fire him up with opinions/ideas.
He is extremely excited about being in the Racing Media Academy cohort of 2025. He sees this as the perfect opportunity to learn practical and essential media skills which, which he hopes, will prepare him for a lengthy career in the racing media landscape. He is also excited about meeting like-minded people equally enthusiastic about racing, media or both, which will allow him to make great connections too!
Matt Morris
Matt is 23 years old and from the Wirral. He has worked for Liverpool FC Tours and the museum department for nearly three years, delivering a range of experiences for fans, plus involvement in media productions for club departments and partners. He is a passionate racing fan, attending as many meetings as possible and following the latest news and results daily.
His favourite course is Cartmel, and he is lucky enough to have shares in a few horses with local trainer James Moffatt. He loves visiting the yard and seeing the horses enjoying their lives at home and being cared for so well by the team. He is excited to meet lots of new people and learn from the best in racing media. He is eager to gain a strong understanding of the different areas within the racing media and apply that knowledge during his placement at JSC. He aims to use these valuable experiences to establish a career in the racing media.
Ameila Santangeli
Amelia Santangeli is 23 years old. From a young age she been passionate about the horse racing industry. Most of her childhood was spent growing up in rural Cheshire riding event horses, and riding racehorses on the weekends. Horses have always been a massive part of her life, leaving home at 16 to go to Hartpury Equine College in Gloucester, where she then went on to go to study International Horse Racing Business. She is currently working at Overbury Stud doing the thoroughbred breeding season and loves working there. She is excited to start a new journey with the Racing Media Academy, especially her placement with Jockey Cam and seeing where this new journey takes her.
Luca Brooks-Edwards
Luca is a 21-year-old sports journalism student, in his 2nd year at UCFB’s Wembley campus. His time at university, has provided him with the opportunity to have a placement at Dulwich Hamlet Football Club, one of the most exciting teams in non-league. You can often hear his voice on their radio commentary channel for both the men and women’s teams.
He was introduced to racing at a very young age by his father. He took him to many tracks around East Sussex, where he grew up, such as Goodwood, Brighton and Plumpton. More recently he has attended many of the top race days, such as the Cheltenham festival, York’s Ebor meeting and Champion’s Day at Ascot.
He is most looking forward to all the practical elements and workshops on the course, so he can develop skills such as interviewing, which he can transfer to his placement at Nick Luck Daily. He is also very excited to meet more people his age that are passionate about racing, and media and develop friendships throughout the process.
Rahul Gandhi
Born and raised in India, Rahul is an ambitious storyteller with a background in Media and Communication, English and Psychology, along with a Master’s in Filmmaking from Kingston University. He’s passionate about telling diverse stories with authenticity without making them a snoozefest. Articulate, witty and always up for a good conversation, Rahul brings curiosity and a fresh perspective to everything he does, both on and off the screen. He is looking forward to learning more on the Racing Media Academy.
Imogen Webber
Imogen is a 22-year-old event rider based near Newbury. She has always been captivated by horses and learnt to ride on very cheeky Welsh ponies as a toddler. She was then lucky enough to compete and produce various horses alongside her education. Through the process of retraining her first ex racehorse, her interest was turned towards the racing industry which developed into an obsession. She decided to pursue a career in the industry and set about gaining varied experience, including riding out and yearling prep. She has an interest in presenting and gets a real buzz from communicating and sharing in the thrills of equestrian sport. Outside of horses, she has a biology degree from Exeter, enjoys conservation, travel and long-distance running. She is really looking forward to the course, particularly learning more about the ‘behind the scenes’ aspects of racing media, as well as meeting like-minded enthusiasts.
George Wells
George is 32 years old, from Brighton. His love for horses started when his friend took him to a riding stable, where he volunteered. The two riding schools he went to were Chestnuts and Three Greys. At college, he studied horse care management levels one to three. Part of the course was to do work experience; he did his work experience at Gary Moore Racing. He also did the transition to the racing course at a British Racing School. Whilst at college, he worked as a groundsman at Plumpton Racecourse.
His university course has allowed him to combine his love for horses and television studies for a career. Whilst at Southampton Solent University he won a couple of National Student Television awards, as part of a team of 50 + students. He also produced an NHS video and a documentary about boxing. Currently, he is working as a freelance runner for IMG (Premier League Productions). And is also a freelance runner for Gravity Media.
From Racing Media Academy, he is looking to learn about new roles, which he may not be aware of and to expand his knowledge of horse racing. He is also interested in learning about graphics and VT operations.
Oliver Barnard
Oliver is a 23-year-old journalism graduate from Nottingham Trent University with a passion for sports media, particularly horse racing and football. He lives in Lichfield, and his local track is Uttoxeter, where he’s enjoyed many fantastic race days. His favourite racing memory is standing in the crowd as Galopin Des Champs stormed up the Cheltenham hill to win his first Gold Cup. He’s also a big Norwich City fan and a member of the England Supporters Travel Club.
During university, he was part of the sports news team, and he writes his own blog covering Norwich City. After graduating, he completed work experience with Runner’s World magazine, which reinforced his determination to pursue a career in sports journalism.
Through his time with the Racing Media Academy and the Racing Post, he’s eager to develop as a sports journalist and learn from the best in the industry. He’s excited to broaden his knowledge of the horse racing media landscape and build skills that will support his future career. Most of all, he can’t wait to create content about the best sport in the world every day.
Milly Maxwell
Milly Maxwell is 21 years old, from Southern Scotland. She is currently studying Equine Business Management at Hartpury University in Gloucestershire. When she is not studying at university, she work’s full time as a Racing Secretary at Iain Jardine Racing in Scotland, where she completes administrative duties, as well as accompanying the horses to the races. She is really looking forward to the Racing Media Academy and is excited to expand her knowledge within a new side of the racing industry, learning more about media and presenting.
Kandra Obeng
Kandra Obeng has grown up in an African household in Tottenham. Growing up in a deprived area she faced a lot of barriers such as schools not being good enough and people around her rebelling. As a member of the community, she witnessed a lot of people she knew being excluded from school and getting involved with gangs. However, she couldn’t just be a bystander so in 2023 she decided to join the peer action collective as a young peer researcher. Within her time there she joined an amazing team of young people aiming to find causes and solutions for knife crime and youth violence in London. During her time as a researcher, she enjoyed analysing and coding data that she collected. Also, the opportunities her work gave her to be creative on the team, such as allowing her to use her spoken word and poetry skills to communicate the findings to fascinate a younger audience.
When she came across the Racing Media Academy’s opportunity, she knew it was something she wanted to do. Doing a media course in school has inspired her to pursue a future career in media. She is excited to be part of a team and exposed to other people aspiring to be involved in media. She thinks this will be a great stepping stone for her future and will be able to exercise her skills and gain new skills and experiences on top.
Fung N Yip
Fung is originally from Hong Kong but has lived in Spain for the last 4 years, before recently moving to the UK. Currently based in Newcastle, he is obsessed with storytelling, constantly forging different projects to tell stories from football, politics, social issues and more. To reach the target audience, he has found different platforms to tell different stories, such as Media of Hong Kong Students and Play Your Own Style. He is looking forward to the course to enhance his storytelling skills and connect with different amazing people.