'Oh come on, I've got to get to Sandringham to skin a dead foal for the Queen' - the remarkable woman who saved the lives of thousands of foals

Racing Lives is a new weekly series on the lives of people and horses we have recently lost. Here, John Randall remembers the founder of the National Foaling Bank, Johanna Vardon, who died earlier this year

Of all the racing people who died in the first half of 2024, the most remarkable was Johanna Vardon, founder of the National Foaling Bank in Shropshire in 1965.

Vardon, who died on April 25 aged 88, worked tirelessly over many years to provide a nationwide service that has saved the lives of more than 20,000 orphaned foals of all equine breeds, including thoroughbreds, and paired them with foster mares who had lost their own foal.