How winning racehorse “changed everything”

When five-year-old Betsy suffered from an ear infection, stomach pain and fever, her family doctor attributed the cause to a virus. But Betsy’s mother, Charlotte, had a gut feeling that something was very wrong.

Betsy was taken to the emergency room with stomach pain and a food intolerance was suspected.

But Charlotte began investigating her daughter’s symptoms and contacted her GP again – this time asking about leukemia, and they agreed to do some blood tests.

“I was desperate… it was complete panic… I knew something was wrong,” she remembers.

“She was tired, her personality had changed, she didn’t want to play with her friends or her sister anymore.”

Just days after Betsy’s blood tests, in February 2023, Charlotte received a call asking her to take Betsy to the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend to receive the results.

“I couldn’t speak on the drive there,” she remembers.

“Panic set in, this nausea and I remember just shaking, my whole body shaking until I got to the hospital.”

Since her horse trainer husband Christian was working in Cheltenham, she and Betsy were led into a room where they received the news Charlotte had been dreading.

“I had a gut feeling, I knew it was going to happen [leukaemia]…. but it still hit me like a bus,” she says.

“I was numb… I remember just standing up and holding on to the bed and not being able to speak. I got this noise in my ear like you see in movies and everything just kind of stopped.”

Betsy was diagnosed acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and was immediately admitted to Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales in Cardiff, where a play therapist was able to explain the diagnosis to her in a way she could understand.

Chemotherapy began within two days.

“The treatment of leukemia is very long and very stressful and the first six weeks are particularly difficult,” says Charlotte.

“They’re given a steroid that completely changes their personality and appearance, and I don’t think we were prepared for that.”

Betsy interjects, giggling, “I was really fat.”

“She was doing very, very badly,” Charlotte interjects.

Since then, her family says her life has been an “emotional rollercoaster.”

Just six weeks after Betsy’s treatment, the racehorse Kitty’s Light, trained by her father, won the Scottish Grand Nationalso that the family can experience happiness even in the darkest times.

“Kitty’s Light came at the right time in our lives,” says Charlotte, sitting outside her stables in Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan, with Betsy on her lap.

“We had a particularly bad day with Betsy at home and I wasn’t even interested,” Charlotte says.

“I didn’t want to watch it, but my mother-in-law and my mother said, ‘Come on, let’s do it, it’s nice for them to see their father on TV’.”

Little did she know that the horse would have the race of his life.

“It was so emotional that I jumped around after the first fence,” says Charlotte.

Betsy added: “I just remember mum screaming up and down. I had a headache too – and that made it worse.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte giggles.

It was the tonic the family needed.

“It was just this ass saying, ‘Come on, everything’s going to be okay, it’s not all doom and gloom, we’ll have a bit of luck along the way,'” says Charlotte.

“It changed things for us, gave us a focus… something to look forward to.”

Charlotte admitted she found a resilience she didn’t know she had.

“Part of it is that you don’t have a choice,” she says.

“I broke down a bit at the beginning, but you have to change your mindset and finding the positive every day is still what helps me…that gets me through.”

She was moved by family, friends and the horse racing community who joined her.

The bonds that Betsy has formed with other children being treated at Noah’s Ark, and that she and Christian have developed with their parents, also help them get through.

“The friendships we have made will now probably last forever, a lifetime. We are very lucky,” she says.

Betsy is currently in the maintenance phase of her treatment, which will last until May. It includes daily oral chemotherapy, monthly chemotherapy through her Portacath – a small device placed under the skin to provide long-term access to a vein – and a lumbar puncture every three months.

Her hair is also growing back, she enjoys playing with her older sister Tilly, nine, and is going back to school.

Charlotte has returned to her job as a physiotherapist with a new perspective.

“It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions… but at the moment we’re coping well, we’re positive and happy and we’re making the most of every day we have together.”

“It completely changed the way I think about everything,” she says.

“Nothing will ever worry me again… nothing is more important in life than that your children are well, that your family is healthy and happy. Everything else can be sorted out.”

Charlotte says although she still cries a lot, she refuses to feel sorry for her family.

“I never felt why us, because it has to happen to someone… It was just the hands we were dealt and we have to deal with it the best we can.”

She is determined to find joy in everyday life. It could be something as simple as sitting in the sun with the girls, family activities like birthdays or Kitty’s Light’s successful racing career.

“It was very difficult and you’ve been through so much, but I think you’ll remember all the good times you had,” she tells Betsy.

“Even though this has been traumatic and absolutely terrible, I think because of the love and support we have received from people we will look back on things very fondly and change the way we look at life.”