Captured on video: UK's oldest horse race at Kiplingcotes

A JOINER has won the UK's oldest horse race for the third time on the trot.

John Thirsk, from Holme-on-Spalding Moor, was first past the winning post on his mount Maisie in this year's Kiplingcotes Derby.

Hundreds of spectators turned out to watch 13 riders take part in the race, first run in 1519, which starts close to the old Kiplingcotes railway station near Market Weighton.

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Previous winner Liz Stubbins fell off at Enthrope crossroads, breaking her wrist and leaving steed Charlie to finish the course riderless, while jockey Pete Pinder failed to finish the race after his horse Chris slipped.

Mr Thirsk, an amateur horseman, said after his victory: "It was a bit scary. We lost a horse down there and it was a bit heart in mouth."

Second place went to Laura Brown, a previous winner, and third to Cranswick woman Karen Hall, who was competing in the race for the first time and on a horse she has owned for less than a month.

The race is not timed but trustee Guy Stephenson said he thought it was probably a little slower this year because the riders were because of deep ruts on the four-and-a-half mile course.

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Chris Pitt, a freelance racing journalist from Birmingham, decided to go to Kiplingcotes rather than the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival.

He said: "It's the whole atmosphere of Kiplingcotes that I prefer. Also the history and being involved in something that has been going for centuries is really special.

"It's a real throw back to the old days of horse racing."