Racing Welfare’s Best Turned Out, supported by Betfair, will see the charity award the BTO prize in the Group 3 Palace House Stakes at Newmarket on Saturday 6th June.
The race has been named the ‘Betfair Supports Racing Welfare Palace House Stakes’ in recognition of the initiative.
Racing Welfare’s Best Turned Out aims to champion the efforts of racing staff in readying their horses to run. There are 13 runners declared for Saturday’s race and all yards with a runner have been offered the chance to submit a short video clip or image of their preparations in the lead-up to the race. The winner will be decided by public vote via Racing Welfare’s website; voting will be open from 6pm on Friday 5th June to the start of the race when the vote will close.
The initiative offers an innovative way of judging the BTO for the race, which in normal circumstances would be decided on course ahead of the race. With runners from leading trainers such as Kevin Ryan, Karl Burke, Clive Cox and Richard Hannon, Racing Welfare and Betfair hope that the concept will capture the imagination of the racing public by giving them a behind-the-scenes insight into the preparation of horses from some of the top yards in the country.
Racing Welfare will be publishing the submitted clips across its social media channels from Friday 5th June ahead of the race.
Jessica Stafford, Racing Campaigns Manager at Betfair, commented: “We have enjoyed supporting Racing Welfare for a number of years and given the number of fundraising events they have had to cancel this year we were keen to help with not only a donation but also to raise the profile of the incredibly important work they do for the racing community, especially during this challenging time.
“As co-sponsor of the Guineas Weekend at Newmarket and knowing that many racegoers will not be able to see horses in the flesh, this initiative will provide a really unique way to recognise and champion the hard work that stable staff put in to getting their horse’s prepared for raceday. Through this brilliant initiative we will be able to discover stories about top quality horses and offer the opportunity for the public to vote online for their best turned out of the Betfair Supports Racing Welfare Palace House Stakes.”
Racing Welfare’s Chief Executive, Dawn Goodfellow, praised the partnership, saying: “We are hugely grateful to Betfair for supporting Racing Welfare’s Best Turned Out. The initiative gives us the opportunity to showcase some of the work that goes into preparing racehorses ahead of them being seen on track and offers the public some fabulous behind-the-scenes access. We hope that everyone watching racing from home on Saturday will get involved and vote for their best turned out horse on the day.”
Racing Welfare is asking that people donate the price of a racecard to its Covid-19 Emergency Appeal when they head to the website to vote for their best turned out. As part of their support of the initiative, Betfair have confirmed that they will match the total amount of money donated to Racing Welfare in the run-up to the Palace House Stakes on Saturday, up to the value of £30k. Donations to Racing Welfare’s Covid-19 Emergency Appeal can be made here: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/RWEmergencyAppeal
For full details on Racing Welfare’s Best Turned Out and to vote for your winner, head to https://racingwelfare.co.uk/rwbto/. Track the campaign by following @racingwelfare on social media or #RWBTO.
Karen can usually be found glued to her computer or at the stables. Having edited several national magazines she co-founded Eclipse Magazine in 2008 after realising that many of her friends were nervous about going racing due to lack of information – what to wear, how to bet etc.
She absolutely loves her job (how many people can say that?!) and is truly grateful to all supporters of and contributors to Eclipse Magazine.
If you are reading this she would like to say THANK YOU! (And please spread the word about Eclipse…!!)
