A photo finish cert: horse dons tweed for festival

A fashion designer has given new meaning to the term clothes horse - by creating a three-piece suit fit for a stallion.
By The Newsroom
Published 13th Mar 2016, 15:00 BST
Updated 13th Mar 2016, 15:06 BST

Champion jockey Sir Tony McCoy unveiled the world’s first Harris Tweed race horse suit complete with flat cap, modelled by veteran racer Morestead.

Bookmaker William Hill tasked former Alexander McQueen apprentice Emma Sandham-King with creating a stylish suit to celebrate the start of the 2016 Cheltenham Festival. It took four weeks to create the suit, using more than 18 metres of tweed shipped from the Isle of Harris.

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Tweed is undergoing a massive revival and this year’s Cheltenham Festival will see the most tweed worn since the 1960s.

According to statistics expert, Dr Geoff Ellis, enough tweed is worn at Cheltenham to stretch all the way from the racecourse to Ireland.

Sir Tony, who has counted 31 Cheltenham Festival winners, among his big-race haul, said: “I’ll be watching from the side-lines for the first time this year and rather than strapping on my jockey silks, I’ll be joining the punters and hopefully tipping up a few winners to bash the bookies.”

Ms Sandham-King said designing the horse tweed suit had been one of the biggest challenges in her career.

She added: “Some models can be real divas, but Morestead was calm and a pleasure to work with.”