GALLOPING granddad Ken Holmes has won a special award for his record ten victories in the world's oldest horse race.

Horse dentist Ken, of Cliffe, near Selby, claimed his tenth Kiplingcotes Derby victory in March last year.

He has also finished runner-up four times.

Now, on top of his Kiplingcotes record, the 71-year-old has scooped the Sport Selby and District Annual Achievement Award.

He said entering the Kiplingcotes has a strange effect on him.

He said: "It is hard to explain. When I go up there, before I go to the start, I feel I have been there before in a previous life. When we start riding it sends me spinning away somewhere else.

"I love the race and I'm chuffed to win this award. It means a lot."

Ken was branded a "rebel rider" after going to the East Yorkshire Wolds to run a lone race during the 2001 foot and mouth crisis.

He added: "I have no regrets. I didn't take foot and mouth up there, I was fully justified in keeping that race alive."

The Kiplingcotes Derby has been run every year since 1519. Tradition states that if the race should fail to take place, it must stop forever.

Updated: 10:48 Tuesday, July 15, 2003