'I'm not afraid' - Kelleway to deliver supplies into Ukraine on latest mission

Newmarket trainer Gay Kelleway will for the first time cross over the border into Ukraine when she embarks on her fourth aid mission to deliver charitable donations and equine supplies on Sunday.

Kelleway plans to travel close to the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv. Since the Russian invasion on February 24, the former rider has delivered supplies to an equine hub near the Poland-Ukraine border.

Alongside other volunteers, Kelleway has been able to bring back a number of refugees, horses, dogs and cats on the return journey to Newmarket, often passing through another equine hub in Holland.

On travelling to a warzone, Kelleway said: "I’m not afraid of dying. You only die once and if I did die then at least it would be doing something meaningful rather than just moaning about prize-money.

"You can get hit by a missile strike and blown up anywhere in Ukraine at the moment. That’s just the way it is over there and there is the nuclear threat to worry about, but we’re just getting on with it.

"We leave on Sunday with two horseboxes and a van. We'll unload the stuff at the Ukrainian border and transfer most of it into vans. I'm crossing the border myself and we're going to travel around various cities, towns and villages to deliver medical aid for horses.

"We never make plans of who we will bring back from the border. Last time I had no idea we would be bringing back people, cats and a Great Dane but we did."

The trainer will be joined by volunteer Charlie Thornycroft, who since March has coordinated the rescue of many refugees, horses and other pets from the equine hub near Rzeszow in south-east Poland.

Another group of volunteers from the British racing industry set off on a different mission to Poland on Saturday, with the aim of bringing back three Ukrainian families seeking refuge in the UK.

Under the banner of Racing To Help Ukraine, freelance box driver Julia Bennet, Sharon Ingram, wife of trainer Roger, and Michael Shipster, who is sponsoring one of the families, will complete the 1,000-mile journey by minibus to the city of Katowice.

If you want to donate to Gay Kelleway's fundraising effort, click here to give your support.

Read this next:

'I'll die with cancer and can't change it but I can change these people's lives'

Sign up to receive On The Nose, our essential daily newsletter, from the Racing Post. Your unmissable morning feed, direct to your email inbox every morning.