Owners ‘nail colours to the mast’ for McNamara and Bright

Approximately 200 racehorse owners have already signed up to a campaign to feature owners’ colours in a tribute section of the race card for the Limerick Charity race-day on October 14.

All money raised from this campaign, and on the race-day, will be donated to the Jockeys’ Emergency Fund to aid the rehabilitation of JT McNamara and Jonjo Bright, both paralysed after suffering falls within weeks of each other in March of this year.

The appeal to owners was based on a Peter Curling original illustration captioned “We’re pushing the boat out for JT and Jonjo….nail your colours to the mast.”

The campaign was launched just over a week ago, with a mailing to Horse Racing Ireland’s list of owners, and the response has been immediate and enthusiastic.

Each owner pays €100/£100 to add their colours to the special race card pages and, with one week to go, sign-ups are coming in on a daily basis.

Limerick racecourse manager, Russell Ferris, said: “I want to remind owners to sign up by October 7, as this is the cut-off date to allow us to prepare the race card.

“This is a novel way for owners to get involved and support the Jockeys’ Emergency Fund, who do such great work for jockeys such as JT and Jonjo.

“The inclusion of the owners’ colours will make the race card a very special keepsake of the day and participating owners will get a race card as a memento.”

Owners can ‘nail their colours to the mast’ by contacting HRI’s Client Accounts Department by phone at 00 353 (0)45455444, by post, or via the online client account system.

Limerick Racecourse will donate all media rights payments, admissions, restaurant bookings and auction proceeds to the fund. Horse Racing Ireland has pledged all entry fees and sponsorship income.

The jockeys will donate their riding fees and the bookmakers their pitch-fees.