One of the fun things we did this half term was take a trip to the National Stud and Palace House (The National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art) in Newmarket. Discover Newmarket runs a number of tours around the UK Home of Horseracing and the family friendly National Stud and Palace House (and it really is family friendly) offers a really great day out for children.  I know, I wouldn’t have thought of it either but really and truly we just had one of the best days! You can join public Discover Newmarket tours which run throughout the year, or have them create a private tour for you and your family on a day and with a itinerary you choose. Some of the tours they have are more geared towards children – group tours to the National Stud, Short Head or Country Mile Tours. As part of some of the tours you will get to visit the museum where the kids can take part in a game of bingo as they go around it. If you just wanted to take your family to the museum you can buy tickets through the Discover Newmarket website too.  The bingo tasks the children with finding all the things on their sheet and also this means they will be learning along the way without realising. There’s plenty to keep them entertained with hands on exhibits like ‘weigh the jockey’ and ‘can you lift a horses heart’ and my children, along with their friends from the Mummy Matters gang, were thoroughly captivated!

The tour was pretty wonderful too and we learned lots of interesting facts about breeding race horses (not for the non millionaires of us it would seem) as well as getting to see some of these prize foals and their mothers. I think my favourite part of the tour was meeting Pat the ‘Stallion Man’ (what a job title, he totes needs a badge that he can just wear about town don’t you think?) and hearing him talk about the more finer points of, you know, making race horses… Absolutely went over the kids heads but lots of sniggers from me and my Mum – you’d think we might know better but nope…

Our tour guide was very friendly and knew everything we asked her which was quite a lot. We became quite raucous at one point and even had a sing-a-long on the coach (can’t think WHO orchestrated that one cough cough) and she took it all in her stride. She also commiserated with me when the shop assistant in the gift shop practically threw herself over the expensive coats sacrificing her own TINY body so that I didn’t lumber my own hefty one into one of her prize wares. I think the term she growled at me was ‘NO, THESE ARE NOT FOR YOU! THEY ARE TOO SMALL!’ Alright love, I like JUST had a baby… So you know, maybe don’t pop in the gift shop if you’re after some body boosting confidence building… I have aspirations of wafting back in there in the summer in a coat of many colours, far more beautiful and expensive than the one I actually WAS going to buy from her and shouting ‘You waited on me in the winter, big mistake, HUGE!’ as I waft out again but let’s face it… I’m going to eat a lot of pies in between then and now and it’s highly unlikely…

Moving on with a food segue and I’ll tell you about The National Stud’s Wavertree cafe which was utterly delightful and full of yummy things that presumably the coat keeper in the gift shop only cries into her salad thinking about. We had the most delicious lunch and as it was pancake day followed it with lashings of lemon and sugar on the good stuff! I noticed that the prices were extremely reasonable (£2.50 for two massive pancakes to give you an idea) so despite Newmarket and everything about it being very monied (60% of locals have something to do with horse racing – a fact we picked up on the tour), they don’t over charge, in fact, I’d say the opposite!

We loved our day (despite coat gate) and the children have been talking about it all half term. I can’t wait to try some of their other family friendly activities in the summer like the family days I heard much about from Sabina (Mummy Matters) and Newmarket Nights where there are children friendly bands playing. Last year we almost booked tickets to see Little Mix but didn’t in the end and chose to go in Norwich, which turned out to be a terrible venue, instead. I can’t wait to see what more Discover newmarket have to offer!

Follow