The Rose Paterson Community Sportswoman Award and the Rose Paterson Trust will be launched in honour of the late Aintree Chairman Rose Paterson, who died last June.
Paterson's daughter Evie Paterson shared the news while introducing the sixth annual Aintree Grand Women's Summit, which was held via Zoom. The theme was Sport and Mental Health: A Powerful Relationship.
Evie Paterson said, “It shouldn't be me here at all; it should be my mother. She always did the introductions to the Grand Women's Summit so beautifully and so gracefully, and I cannot hope to fill her shoes. What I can do is say a few words about her legacy. It is easy to forget what a novel initiative the Grand Women's Summit was when it was set up, and even now remains a fairly unique event in the racing calendar. As the first female chairman of a National Hunt racecourse, she herself understood what it was like to operate in a man's world and was passionate about helping women succeed in racing and sport more broadly.
“I would also like to touch on Aintree's ties with the Merseyside community. She [Rose] understood that Aintree and the Grand National belonged to Liverpool, and did a huge amount to forge and strength the links between the racecourse and Merseyside. To bring all these aspects of her legacy together, we are launching the Rose Paterson Community Sportswoman Award. This will be an annual award given by Aintree to recognise a girl or woman from Merseyside who is making a difference to grassroots community sport, through participation or support. We want to reward girls and women, sportspeople or otherwise, who display the qualities that my mother possessed in abundance–perseverance, selflessness, devotion and inclusiveness.”
The Rose Paterson Trust, to aid suicide prevention, will be launched on Saturday, Grand National Day at Aintree.
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