Dad’s epic racecourses-walk for charity reaches Nottingham

The Colwick Park track is next in line to host the nationwide fundraiser, Walking The Courses, in which racing enthusiast Richard Farquhar is trekking 3,000 miles from racecourse to racecourse across the country.

All 58 tracks will be linked in a chain via an epic, year-long 3,000-mile walk that aims to raise £1.4 million for the Pancreatic Cancer UK and Racing Welfare charities.

And 53-year-old father-of-four Farquhar, whose racegoing dad died of pancreatic cancer, will arrive at Nottingham for its meeting tomorrow, having walked the 32 miles from Leicester racecourse over a day and a half.

To complete the Leicester-to-Nottingham leg of his journey in style, Farquhar will be walking around the Colwick Park course itself before the afternoon’s racing begins.

He is hoping to be accompanied by various familiar faces from the racing world and several supporters of the campaign.

Racegoers are also encouraged to take part in the lap of the track and should get in contact via www.walkingthecourses.com if they wish to do so.

Farquhar is now more than a quarter of the way through his racecourse pilgrimage, having visited 18 courses already and covered about 800 miles.

The journey, which began at Newmarket, is due to be completed next April when he returns to the Rowley Mile for its Craven meeting, which Richard attended with his father for 26 consecutive years. By then, he will have involved people from all across the UK in his challenge and partnered some of the biggest corporates within the racing industry.

Earlier this month Farquhar’s fundraising total soared past £100,000. This first major milestone put the Walking The Courses team in particularly high spirits as he walked through the third month of the campaign.

The exit bucket-collection after the last race at Nottingham Racecourse tomorrow will be in aid of Walking The Courses and racegoers are encouraged to give generously for Farquhar’s two extremely worthy, but crucially underfunded, charities.

The general manager at Nottingham, James Knox, commented: “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Richard and the Walking The Courses team. The challenge of walking to all racecourses in the country is quite simply astonishing and one that we are happy to support. We wish Richard all the best, hope the weather plays its part, and the blisters aren’t too painful!”

To find out more about Walking The Courses, to donate and to get involved, visit www.walkingthecourses.com.

NOTTINGHAM also stages a cancer charity raceday on Thursday 30th July when £1 from every ticket bought will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

There will be live music and attractions including bouncy castles, making it a day out for the family during the school summer holidays.