Last summer we attended the opening of Summer Saturdays for Newmarket Racecourses and absolutely loved it! We had delicious food and got really into the races placing substantial bets of about £1 on each one – ha ha! I mean we were never going to win (or lose) much but that wasn’t the aim of the game for us, it was about having some family fun and I’m not sure that horse racing immediately springs to mind when you think of that? Old men in flat caps chewing cigars and wafting newspapers about is the stereotype which springs to my mind but actually, we had the most fantastic day as a family and my, my Newmarket go all out to entertain families! You pay the entry price and then all the things inside from bouncy castles and face painting are free and that’s all before the fun of the flutter which made us laugh even though we very definitely were not in it for big guns and had absolutely NO idea what we were doing! Randomly we won a few times which considering we were just picking names we liked and then standing at the end of the race cheering like lunatics I think makes it probably beginners luck! You can read all about our Summer Saturday here and we totally recommend booking for summer 2019 – we will be!

That was our first experience of horse racing after we’d visited the National Stud and Palace House last February half term and it was a lovely way to experience all we’d seen in the museum and learned while touring the stud for the first time. This February we jumped at the chance to visit the museum and stud again with Discover Newmarket who organised for us to have another look at the brilliantly hands on exhibitions in Palace House where the kids got to try riding a race horse simulator, meet real race horses and find out amazing facts about horses, racing and a whole lot more to boot! The children love lookin around this museum and the first time we went, when they got weighed in like jockeys, totally inspired Jimmy who has wanted to be a jockey ever since. This visit was absolutely as brilliant as the last and we again got the magnificent company of Sabina from Deep In Mummy Matters as well as this time being joined by the force that is Emma from That’s The way The Cookie Crumbles! It was a great blogger catch up as a bonus at a fantastic venue where actually, the staff are pretty fun and friendly too – especially if you have one of the organised tours that Discover Newmarket can organise (from £11)!

We had Larry as our personal tour guide this year, an ex jockey and man of very many interesting words he became our friend throughout the day and we enjoyed being in his company immensely. Last year our guide was great but there’s definitely something a bit special about Larry so I’d count myself very lucky if I were to be on a tour with him again. From old fables and tales to firm facts and figures about horse racing in general, Newmarket, the Stud and the museum he’s your man and Jimmy, who has wanted to be a jockey himself ever since his first visit, was absolutely captivated by his stories of winning races, not quite making the Grand National and the sorts of things he will need to do to become a famous prize winning jockey!

So we were taken on a tour of The National Stud, home to racehorse Stallions, Mares and their Foals where we got to see where racehorses are created (many Mummy sniggers at poor Larry’s attempts to make this a family friendly presentation – he did very well under the circumstances of having me, Sabina and Emma in the room) and to see some of the new born foals getting up close to the future champions of the turf in the beautiful 500 acre stud farm! It was much better weather this year and we got to see much more which was very interesting – we also got to meet up with Paddy the Stallion Man (best job title ever – GIVE the man a badge!) and we insisted he have another photo with us to recreate the one we took last year!

Next we visited Palace House, the newly opened National Heritage Centre for Horse racing and Sporting Art where on display are artefacts and hands on activities for the children to learn about the history of horse racing, get up close with real racehorses and find out what it takes to be a jockey. We know we love this museum as have been twice before and this was the part we were most looking forward to! It didn’t disappoint and was even better with the company of Larry!

I’ve talked about what a great visit it is for kids (and it is) but I haven’t said how interesting it is for the grown ups too. This is really a whole family experience and everyone will find something to enjoy about a day out here. I don’t think it matters if you’re into horse racing or not, but I bet you’ll be interested when you leave!

Fundamentally there’s a LOT of money in horse racing but when we went last summer we were betting £1 and £2 per race – we had great fun and that’s what it’s about for us but it sure is riveting to hear about the moneyed and famous of the horse racing world!

We can’t wait for Summer Saturdays to start and to visit the family enclosures again but we might have to make a visit back to the museum between now and then! Even if it’s just to pop into one of the cafes! Both the restaurant at the museum (who make delicious summer picnics) and the Wavertree Cafe at the National Stud are well worth a visit for their yummy home made food!

The museum is open Monday to Saturday 10 – 4 and on Sundays from 11 – 4. A FAMILY ANNUAL PASS (Oh we know how much I LOVE a Family annual pass) is just £44 on offer at the moment (usually £45) which makes it just £10 more than a day pass. Discover Newmarket also have an offer for my readers at the moment giving 10% off individual tickets (not family bundles) – just use NS2019 when purchasing on line.

We were invited for the day as guests of Discover Newmarket.