After working at Jockey Club tracks around
Britain, the 34-year-old is ready for the most high-profile job of its kind
The job of looking after the Grand National course falls vacant about four times a century, on recent trends, so Sulekha Varma is counting herself very lucky to get it at the age of just 34. “I’m over the
moon,” she said on Thursday as the news began to sink in. “I’m fully aware of what a big challenge the job will be but I know how things operate there.”
That’s because running Aintree during the National meeting is not a one-man job. For those three days, the Jockey Club brings its clerks of the course from around the country to
Liverpool to help out, so if you walk the track you’re as likely to bump into Simon Claisse or Kirkland Tellwright as Andrew Tulloch, who has been Aintree’s clerk for the last 24 years. It’s odd to see those familiar figures of authority in the one place, working together, a bit like Avengers Assemble for racing geeks.