Racing to School guests celebrate milestone at Ascot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse welcomed Racing to School on their Spring Family Raceday to celebrate our important milestone event and to create a day to remember for friends of the charity.
With the help of the Ascot Supports…initiative, we were able to mark reaching our 200,000th in this our 21st year of supporting young people, and in some style.
Our 50 guests in Ascot’s Panoramic Restaurant were treated to lunch overlooking the finishing straight (which thankfully was visible despite the fog!), before generously supporting a charitable raffle, which raised over £1,000 that will go directly to our work with young people.
Our youngest guests ensure that the raffle prizes are safely delivered to their lucky recipients!
After lunch, we were honoured to be joined by former National Hunt Champion jockey Richard Johnson who talked fondly about his career and kindly previewed the day’s racing.
Former National Hunt Champion Jockey Richard Johnson shares lots of humorous anecdotes from his impressive riding career and shared his expertise on the day’s racing
Outside on the Cedar Tree Lawn, the Racing to School team offered the busy raceday crowd the opportunity to try on our jockeys’ silks, test their riding skills on our equicisers, and experience one of our Virtual Reality headsets, and there was certainly no shortage of willing participants!
Later on in the afternoon, we were thrilled to be recognised through the Racing to School Veterans’ Handicap Steeple Chase.
Winning connections of Elegant Escape are presented their prizes by Racing to School representatives
(from l to r: Nick Attenborough, Anne Richardson, Kate Andrews, John Romans, Michael Andrews, Joe Tizzard, and Harry Cobden)
Like so many other racecourses around Great Britain, Ascot Racecourse has supported Racing to School for many years by opening its doors to our groups of young people for unique and inclusive learning days. During our celebration event, our guests were given a glimpse of what these young people experience during their day on course through the special video created by Ascot Supports to highlight our charity’s work.
As a registered charity that relies solely on voluntary giving to fund our work helping young people, we were hugely grateful to all those racegoers who gave so generously to our bucket collections on the exit gates at the end of the day.
Racing to School’s Chair Nick Attenborough concluded: “We are truly grateful to all those involved in making this such a special day, and to everyone who has made these landmark achievements possible. Our 20th anniversary fell during the enormous challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we felt it only sensible to wait until this year to bring together friends of the charity to celebrate.
“We are planning for this year to be our best yet in reaching 16,000 young people across Great Britain. Racing to School is committed to supporting the learning and development of diverse groups of young people through the unique sport of horseracing. Today was such a special way to mark this collaborative effort, and our thanks go to Ascot Racecourse for this wonderful opportunity.”
Our thanks go to: Ascot Racecourse, Ascot Supports…, Arena Racing Company, Jockey Club Racecourses, Michael Andrews, Tweenhills Stud, Warren Greatrex Racing, Anna Lisa and Andrew Balding, all our guests who joined us on the day or sent good wishes, and all those racegoers who visited our stand and gave generously to our bucket collections.
