Jane Carpenter

I'm from just outside Kells, Co Meath and I suppose racing has always been a passion of mine. I do love the sport, and it is brilliant to make a career out of it now. My family are huge racing fans and I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Racing is a highly discussed topic at home with my family as well as farming. The racing is never off the TV. We take an annual family holiday to Galway every year. We go down for the week, and I've been going since I was a child. It is a proper family tradition now. We have going to the same house for the races I'd say for 14 or 15 years now. There are so many bedrooms there and some of my friends from home come down towards the weekend. It is a proper good holiday, and it is always in our calendars every single year. We were in Punchestown recently after Fairyhouse, so we would be big supporters of going racing. My parents are farmers, so I wouldn't have a close association with horses. I grew up on the farm, and I've been surrounded by animals all of my life. I know at first hand the effort, work and dedication that goes into animals and caring for them. I would have helped dad out on the farm alongside my two brothers. We still try to give a hand when time allows. We've no horses here on the farm, but I'm extremely confident that we will one day! I used to do a bit of riding when I was younger at my local equestrian centre. Things just got in the way then, but last summer I took it back up as a hobby. I'm really enjoying that again.

I did my Leaving Cert during Covid-19, so I never actually sat the exams. I had to come to my own decision on what to study at college and I remember writing out on a sticky note all my passions and interests - they were racing, agriculture and fashion. I remember I put teaching down as well just to keep my mum happy! I came to the conclusion of a Media and English degree at DCU. That was a three-year degree, but the first year was completed at home due to covid, so I never actually got up there until the second year. It was all online, which was difficult enough. I remember going up the second year and, early on, I realised how competitive college was at DCU. I just remember thinking about how I was going to separate myself from other students in the room. I knew media was going to be my way forward, but I still wanted to bring it back to the racing side of things or the agricultural side of things.

Navan Racecourse is my local track and I've been going there since I was 12. I came up with the idea of chancing my arm with an Instagram direct message to the racecourse asking if there was an opportunity to shadow the marketing executive or whoever covered the social media capturing content on the day of the races. I was very lucky as the person that was leading the marketing at the time was Mia Morrissey and she got back to me and gave me the chance. I popped up there for a day back in 2021. I shadowed the marketing and the social side of things. I was bitten by the bug anyway and became obsessed with the whole game of racing. I was very lucky to be asked back in 2022 to cover social media for both Fairyhouse and Navan Racecourses part-time while I was in college. Things just spiralled from there. I did an internship that summer in 2022 with the Digital Marketing Team in Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) in Ballymany. I got to go to loads of the big Irish racing festivals and that opened my eyes a lot more to digital marketing and how it was beginning to take off in sporting industries. There was three of us in the team and Sophie O'Hare was the manager. We looked after the social media updates on the HRI channels. I would also have helped out at Leopardstown Racecourse as well during their Bulmers Live evenings doing social media and website updates.

I then went back to do my last year as an undergraduate in DCU in 2023. I still worked part-time in my final year helping out in Fairyhouse and Navan. I was 21 when I walked out with my degree. I always wanted to go on with more academia, though. I did my Master's in 2023 in Digital Marketing. That was a full year long and it was tough enough. I just went from the library basically to my conservatory every single day working away on the laptop. During the summer, I was still up in DCU working. It should have been over two years, but I put the head down and poured absolutely everything into that year. I walked away with a First Class Honours which made it all worthwhile. I remember finishing up my Master's on a Thursday in the Business School in DCU, and the next day my friends and I headed down the road to go to Galway Races for the bank holiday weekend in August. It always comes back to the racing!

A job opened up the week after and it was for a full-time role as a Digital Marketing Executive for both Fairyhouse and Navan. I was successful in my application, and I've been there now since August 2024 working alongside Heather Downey. She makes up the second half of the marketing team and we get on very, very well. We are very similar in our way of thinking, and we are both local to Navan and Fairyhouse. I cover all the digital side of things including the social media channels for both courses with a focus on followers' growth and engagement. I manage two racecourse websites and deal with sponsors as well for their digital requirements. I'd also assist in marketing campaigns. We could race more than 40 days between the two racecourses in a year, so it is busy and no day is the same. I absolutely love my job and the variety of the role in digital marketing. I suppose people wouldn't realise all the work that would go into race days and festivals. On race days, it is all about bringing the action to life, on the ground with live updates of racing results and what is happening on site including festivities during festivals. For our bigger festivals, we would have videographers and I would manage them. For Easter (at Fairyhouse), we had a brilliant team including Eoin Baxter of Baxter Edits. I would have done a good bit of part-time work with him during college. He's brilliant in his role and I was lucky enough to go to Royal Ascot with him in 2024. I worked with him on content for his clients that week which was very special. During Easter we had Eoin, Sarah-Jane Foley and Libby Fleming and there was serious content pushed out those three days. I suppose it does take a bit of an army to get all the content out!

One of my big things is to bring the sport to new audiences and show racing through digital channels. I think it is important because horse racing is a hugely traditional sport and that is one of the reasons I love it. You have your history, all the unique stories, and so many different characters and personalities. It is important to connect that with younger and newer audiences and that can be done through digital channels. It can bring people closer to the sport, the horses, the atmosphere, and the personalities. It makes it way more engaging and accessible for people. I do this through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok as well. I've recently started TikTok up at Fairyhouse. That is a new audience on that platform, and it is a great way of engaging the younger audience. There would be a lot of sponsor requirements on LinkedIn and YouTube as well.

Royal Ascot is right up there in terms of memorable days in racing. I've been to Longchamp as well a couple of times to see the Arc which was brilliant. I was over there in 2024 and Kyprios actually won (Group 1 Prix du Cadran), but it was even more special because he previously won the Vintage Crop in Navan (2022 and 2024). It was great to see him going on to win in France. It is special for me to see so many horses beginning campaigns at Fairyhouse or Navan and then going on to win such big races. On the National Hunt side of things, Lossiemouth always stands out for me. She won at Fairyhouse (Grade 1 Hatton's Grace in December 2024) and then to see her go on and do what she did at Cheltenham in the Champion Hurdle this year was fantastic.

I have a few goals within the industry myself. I want to continue to build up connections and increase my own digital marketing portfolio which will help me down the line. Maybe one day, I'd like to have my own business with a nod to the agricultural side of things and maybe try to marry racing and agriculture as they are still two passions of mine. I didn't have any direct links to the industry, and you don't have to have direct links within the industry to get into it. There are so many people within the industry who are willing to help. I was given plenty of opportunities and I owe a lot to people for giving me chances - Peter Roe (Head of Racing, HRI), Ciaran Flynn (General Manager Navan Racecourse) and Heather Downey.

I owe a lot to my parents, they have always been there for me, and I learned loads from them. In general, it is a brilliant industry and if you are willing to learn, you will get given a chance and get on well. There's a huge opportunity on the digital side of things within the sport.

Jane was in conversation with Michael Graham.

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About Michael Graham

Michael has worked in horse racing journalism for more than 15 years, having also written a weekly betting column on Gaelic football and hurling for a newspaper. He is involved in writing the My Racing Story features on this website. He spent a year in South Africa completing a Diploma in Business Administration and also studied Newspaper Journalism in Belfast. He enjoys playing 5-a-side football on a regular basis.

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