A TERMINALLY ill former soldier has spoken of his pride and emotion after he was able to see his daughter race to victory in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown Park last week.

Mark Hampson, 45, from Swindon, served in the Royal Artillery for 22 years before falling ill with cancer in 2011.

In December, he was told he may only have a month to live after his illness, which had been in remission for a number of years, returned.

But his daughter Brodie told him she was determined that he would see her ride in the famous race wearing his colours.

Mark said: “To get to the race was such an emotional day; that has been my goal since Christmas.

“I just wanted to see her ride in the race, winning was a bonus.”

After a spell at GWH, Mark was moved to Prospect Hospice at the end of last year, where race fever has taken over with the staff coming together to make sure he could achieve his goal.

“The hospice got me there, if I hadn’t come here from the hospital I would never have got to see that race,” said Mark.

“They even offered to send a nurse down there with me.”

Mark’s wife Jan added: “Their support is outstanding, we’d already won that race just getting there.”

The Royal Artillery Gold Cup is made up of serving and ex serving military personnel and family members.

Mark was joined on the day by his former Army colleagues many of whom had known Brodie since she was just a child.

Mark said: “All the lads were there that I served with. It was nice to meet up with all of them, it made for quite an emotional day.”

21-year-old Brodie grew up around horses, she got her first pony when she was only five and spent a lot of time at the stables on the Army camp where Mark served.

She originally wanted to be a mounted police officer but an opportunity presented itself while she was at college to work on a race yard with one of Mark’s former Army colleagues.

From there she went on to become an amateur jockey which is how she came to ride ‘Jenny’s Surprise’ to victory at Sandown last week.

Speaking after the race, Brodie said: "It's a dream come true. Dad has been up and down, with good days and bad, but thank God today was a good day - the best day ever.

"To get him here was just amazing. Dad's always wanted to see me ride in this race, in his colours, and I hadn't yet had a winner in them despite a lot of attempts, so to do it in these colours in this race and win it like that is a dream come true."

Brodie’s victory was far from straightforward, it looked for most of the race as if she wasn’t going to win.

Jan said: “She was amazing, if you watch the end of the race it didn’t look like she was going to win but she came from nowhere.

“I could hear Mark saying just get a third, then get a second, then she came through and won it.

“The way it happened was a dream come true, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”