Racing Welfare Halfway To Goal

Racing Welfare is halfway to its goal for its COVID-19 Emergency Appeal, with fundraising recently passing the £250,000 mark. The appeal, which has included the popular Furlong Factor singing competition and NightIn4Nightout campaign-which together raised £50,000-aims to raise £500,000 to make up for the charity's spring and early summer fundraising events lost to COVID-19.

Since racing restarted, many of the sport's businesses such as Betway, Racehorse Lotto and Hambleton Racing have created innovative ways of raising funds for the charity. Support from across the racing community has also come for events such as the Royal Ascot Virtual Preview Evening, supported by Sporting Life, and Racing Welfare's Best Turned Out series, which was backed by Betfair.

Racing Welfare is asking racing fans that would normally attend a fixture this summer to donate the price of their ticket to its appeal. The addition of Gift Aid means that for every £20 donated towards its Emergency Appeal, Racing Welfare will receive an extra £5. The charity will be on the look out for people showing their support for the campaign on social media, sharing and retweeting images of racing fans enjoying the sport from home whilst supporting Racing Welfare.

Racing Welfare Chief Executive Dawn Goodfellow said, “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt throughout the racing industry. For Racing Welfare the cancellation of many of our usual fundraising events has seen us face a huge income deficit at a time when our services have never been needed more. The generosity of the racing community in response to our COVID-19 Emergency Appeal has been truly inspiring and to be able to announce that we have passed the halfway mark of £250,000 is a huge boost.

“It has been great to have racing back underway and on our screens and I am certainly looking forward to watching all the major summer festivals from home. If you will be doing the same, please consider donating to Racing Welfare. Your donations really do count and reaching our £500k target will enable us to continue supporting the workforce that make racing the wonderful sport that it is.”