What with one thing and another it has been an exciting few weeks in EPDS Central. One of the exciting projects that we have been working on is the EPDS Racing Welfare Best Turned Out. A few weeks ago EPDS group sponsored the entire card at Huntingdon Racecourse, as part of this sponsorship we gave over two races to Racing Welfare as we are keen supporters of the work that they do. During the day all of the EPDS Partnership members enjoyed going in to the paddock and judging the best turned out for each race as well as presenting the prizes.
A best turned out is a lads way of getting recognition for all the care and attention they give their horses both on and off the course, as well as this is puts a bit of cash in their pockets, the prize is usually £25.00 so it is worth winning. We took our job seriously and often found it hard to decide between two or three horses in the paddock.
During and after the day we got chatting about how much fun we had had, and how nice it was to award the prizes. One trainer actually came up to thank us saying it was the first time the lad had ever plaited his horse so to be rewarded with a BTO on his first effort was great. Talking to Racing Welfare about how it would be good to do something bigger we hit upon the idea of a BTO series throughout the year that would ultimately benefit an entire yard as well as individual lads.
The idea is this, one race at one course per month (so 12 races over the year) we award a special BTO prize, instead of one lad winning we award a first, second and third with cash prizes (£50 to the winner) along with a gilet. Each yard that comes first, second, third is awarded points and the yard at the end of the year with the most points gets a cash prize for all the staff of £1000 and a trophy.
The racecourses have been great and all the ones we wanted have come on board, the dates/locations for the series are:
Huntingdon- January 27th, Warwick- February 11th,Carlisle- March 18th, Ludlow- April 5th, Fakenham- May 27th, Stratford- June 2nd, Worcester- July 31st, Bangor on Dee- August 31st, Market Rasen- September 29th, Fontwell- October 6th, Wetherby- November 17th,Wincanton – December 6th (Final)
This means the first one is tomorrow at Huntingdon, the course where the idea was formed in the first place!
We will let you know the winners and will be keeping a running total of the scores as we go through the year.
For more information about Racing Welfare please see here: http://www.racingwelfare.co.uk/pressReleases_detail.php?ID=51
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