£60,000 Jockey Cup added to returning Sky Bet Sunday Series

The Sky Bet Sunday Series will make a return later this month with the addition of the Jockey Cup, worth £60,000 spread across the six fixtures.

The Jockey Cup will offer prize-money for the top rider at each fixture, with the first meeting taking place at Musselburgh on April 30.

Hamilton (May 14), Beverley (June 11), Pontefract (June 25), Haydock (August 6) and Sandown (August 20) will stage the other meetings and the jockey who amasses most points at each fixture will scoop £10,000.

Jockey Paul Mulrennansaid: “The Jockey Cup is a great idea and will firmly focus my mind, as well as my colleagues in the weighing room. It’s a big pot and hopefully I can scoop one Jockey Cup, if not two!

“The series is a great way of lifting jockeys’ profiles and connecting with the racing fans and there should be some great stories to tell.”

Motor Neurone Disease Association has become the new charity partner for the series, and corporate development manager Richard Parris added: “The series provides us with a great opportunity to raise awareness of motor neurone disease and invite people to support us in the race to find a cure for this brutal disease.”

Middleham Open Day proves roaring success

More than 3,000 people flocked to the North Yorkshire training centre of Middleham on Good Friday for the annual open day.

Six yards opened their doors to raise funds for Racing Welfare and other local charities, including those of Charlie Johnston, Karl Burke and Micky Hammond.

Visitors came from as far afield as Devon and Sussex to take part in the afternoon's activities, including stable staff games and a Retraining of Racehorses (RoR) display.

Micky Hammond said: “The Open Day went very well. The weather was very nice and we had lots of people here who all had a good time and it was a good PR exercise for racing. The staff enjoyed it and the horses all had smiles on their faces. 

“A couple I spoke to that had come all the way from Brighton to be there. Others had come from Devon and places like Birmingham. Also there were a lot of regulars, people that you would see at the Yorkshire tracks.”

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