F EATURE FOCUS ON CHARITY
“Playing a meaningful role in the community has grown to be a genuine objective”
and 2019), which has been an important recognition for the racecourse business and the partnerships. Charitable activity is not limited to the largest courses. At Warwick, the racecourse works alongside the local Lions Club and Rotary Club, assisting them to manage and operate their many fundraising events, such as the Community Bonfire or Thai Festival. The Rotary also accepts a donation each race day for organising the car parking for Owners and Trainers. The racecourse has facilitated over £150,000 in fundraising for Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance over the last five years through various initiatives. At the final meeting at Wincanton, they auctioned off the race titles to raise funds for a community hospice. At Haydock Park, the racecourse has provided their facilities to the NHS to offer a Covid-19 testing centre on site since April 2020, to help support the community through the pandemic. While at Carlisle Racecourse, the team has developed a charitable partnership with Youth Zone that assists underprivileged children in the town. You will find that every racecourse would have similar examples of offering good will and assistance. Playing a meaningful role in the community is not just something the racecourses pay lip service to, it’s grown to be a genuine objective, part of our business plan, and one that the racecourse staff themselves have found incredibly rewarding.
from Alder Hey and provides further awareness of the great work the hospital does in the community. Over the past six years, Aintree has been fortunate enough to forge some fantastic partnerships with some inspiring organisations to deliver health and wellbeing related projects, such as Everton in the Community, a valued partnership that has helped deliver Riding for Disabled activity and hundreds of Grand National Dementia Tours for local people and their carers. In 2020, Aintree announced they would donate 10,000 tickets to NHS staff in Merseyside for the Thursday of the Randox Grand National Festival, and rename the day Liverpool’s NHS Day, to thank them for their dedication and commitment through the pandemic. As part of the Programme’s community engagement theme, Aintree has been honoured to work with inner city riding school, Park Palace Ponies, to provide special experiences to local children such as graduation days, riding and grooming days and behind the scenes tours. A special six-week summer starter riding school commenced at Aintree in 2021, with the aim to roll it out in October half-term and Christmas holidays each year, which allows for a total of 120 children a week aged between five and ten to be able to have riding and pony care sessions without charge. Aintree has been delighted to win the Racecourse Association’s Showcase Community & CSR Award four times in the past five Showcase Awards (2015, 2016, 2017
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