And he’s off! Matt onto a winner with £20,000 gift

Top hats off to Matt Hancock! The Health Secretary has, I can disclose, just cantered into the winner’s enclosure in his West Suffolk constituency — which includes Newmarket, home of horse racing — by trousering £20,000.

The windfall is a gift from multimillionaire property magnate and racing devotee Bill Gredley.

It’s the second time in recent years that Gredley has replenished Hancock’s coffers. In 2019, he handed him £25,000 as a contribution towards maintaining his constituency office. This time, there appears to be no stipulation as to how his largesse is spent. The gift has been recorded in the Mps Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Gredley was born in the East End of London to a dock-worker father and Irish mother. Aged six, he was evacuated at the start of World War II to Wales, where he lived with a miner and his family.

But he soon proved he had an eye for a deal, embarking on a property career which has earned him and his six children a £240 million family fortune, and ownership of the 450-acre Stetchworth park Stud, south of Newmarket, and a £9.5 million stable of racehorses.

Their firm, Unex Holdings, through which the donations to Hancock have been made, has seen profits rise from £ 24 million to nearly £32 million in the past year.

Gredley was too busy to talk yesterday, but last year he made light of his generosity to Hancock, who is himself an accomplished amateur rider.

‘I got to know him, and I think he’s doing a great job. I support the Tories and I support the community,’ said Gredley, who has given £50,000 to Newmarket’s Covid-19 Fund to help hard-up residents.

Hancock declined to comment. But he’ll be as overjoyed as his munificent constituent if horse racing is one of the first major sports to return to action — as it was after the first lockdown last year. ‘Horse racing is back from Monday,’ Hancock tweeted on that occasion. ‘Wonderful news for our wonderful sport.’