A man who has been visiting Newton Abbot Racecourse for 83 years is now championing female jockeys.

Born in Bridgewater, Mervyn Broom, West Charleton, first fell in love with horses at the Bridgwater Carnival.

“I was watching the carnival carts and the illuminations and I saw these Shire horses pulling the carnival floats” Mervyn said, “Everyone said I should be watching the floats, but I was watching these amazing animals.”

He turned his passion to horse racing in the 1930s, when he listened to the commentator on the radio who was “so excited”, and first visited Newton Abbot Racecourse in 1935.

When Mervyn placed his first bet in 1937, at least his mother placed it for him, at the age of nine, gambling was still illegal (betting shops were legalised in 1961) and he used to place bets with the milkman and at the pub.

Mervyn said: “The milkman was still delivering milk on a horse-drawn float, pulled by Shire horses, and my mum would take her jug out and he would measure the milk from the metal churn.”

His first bet was a sixpence each way and he won! Mervyn even remembers the horse that won him his first bet, Midday Sun in the 1937 Derby at 100-8.

When he first started visiting Newton Abbot Racecourse, all the odds and information on the runners and riders was written on huge blackboards with chalk, rather than the digital boards that they use now.

“Watching racing has changed”, said Mervyn, “when I first went, there was no tarmac, so there was a lot of mud. The jockeys didn’t ride in silks and colours, they just rode in whatever they wanted.”

He learnt the Tic-tac, the code used by bookies to communicate the odds of certain horses, that to the untrained eye looks a lot like a cross between the Macarena and the heads, shoulders, knees and toes dance, but it makes perfect sense to people like Mervyn.

Mervyn, along with his wife Pam who passed away six years ago, visited Newton Abbot Racecourse together regularly. “She was into it as much as I was, and we travelled to France and Belgium to watch racing.”

They has followed local trainers such as David Barron from Kingsbridge and Paul Nicholls as they moved through the ranks.

Recently Mervyn, who was a manager at Woolworths in Kingsbridge for 13 years, has used all his knowledge to enter into syndicates, where a group of people buy a share in a racehorse, and now owns shares in seven horses.

“I entered my first syndicate with Martin Pipe, a champion trainer from Devon, through the South West Racing Club.”

Mervyn, although he’s never ridden, is completely in love with horse racing. “Its such a complex sport, I feel sorry for people who aren’t into racing. People tell me I’m ‘mad on racing’ and I am, and I love to teach people all about it.

“I get a real satisfaction from talking to people about it. The more you go, the more you learn.”

Mervyn keeps up to date with the world of racing and regularly writes to the Racing Post, the horse-racing magazine and is following new jockey from Buckfastleigh Bryony Frost as she begins her career.

“I saw Bryony at her race at Newton Abbot”, Mervyn said, “as she went passed I told her ‘You can do it Bryony!’ and she was nervous and said ‘I don’t think so’, but I said ‘yes you can, you can beat the favourite’ and she did!

“When she came back past me she said ‘You said I could and I did!’. It was great.”

He is a firm supporter of female jockeys and often writes letters in support of them to Racing Post. Diane Crump became the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby in 1970. He said: “When women first wanted to be jockeys, there were people saying they weren’t strong enough, but I always said just let them try.”

I can see Mervyn visiting Newton Abbot for a long time to come, as he said “horseys keep me alive”.