Ascot Racecourse Supports to donate £5,000 to RoR

Ascot Racecourse Supports to donate £5,000 to RoR for each Ryan Moore winner at Royal Ascot 2024

As part of the Ascot Racecourse Supports community and charity programme, for every race that Racing Ambassador Ryan Moore wins during Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse Supports will donate £5,000 to Retraining of Racehorses, British horse racing’s official charity for the welfare of horses who have retired from racing.

Ryan Moore has been the leading jockey at Royal Ascot ten times during his career, including last year when he partnered six winners, and in 2022 when he had seven winners.

Ascot Racecourse Supports Racing Ambassador Ryan Moore said: “I’m really pleased to be helping Ascot this year. Ascot Racecourse Supports are very kindly donating £5,000 for any winner I ride at Royal Ascot, and hopefully, we can raise some money.”

Talking exclusively about some of his rides this week, Moore picked Kyprios and Opera Singer as being two of his best chances while also shining the light on some of the two-year-olds he is likely to be partnering.

“I’m very much looking forward to riding Kyprios in the Gold Cup again. He’s had two runs this year winning them both and the Gold Cup is always a tough race and one of the biggest races of the week. We hope for a very big run from him.

“Opera Singer runs in the Coronation Stakes. She was the leading two year old filly last year. She was very impressive when she won the Boussac. She was slightly in need of her comeback race in the Irish 1000 Guineas. We’re looking forward to getting her to Ascot hopefully on some nicer ground, it’s a very deep Coronation with all three Guineas winners lining up and we think she’s in with a big chance.

“We have a good team of two year olds going to this year. On the first day we have a lovely Wootton Bassett horse, Camille Pissarro, he was beaten on his last start, but we expect him to come on. We also have Whistlejacket in the Norfolk, who is Little Big Bear’s brother, he’s an exciting colt. He won a Listed race at the Curragh the last time, and we expect him to be very competitive.

“I’m also looking forward to riding Fairy Godmother in the Albany. She won a trial at Naas a couple of weeks ago, and we expect the Albany to suit her and we have a lovely Churchill filly, Heavens Gate, who won at the Curragh and we are looking forward for a big run from her in the Queen Mary.”

Moore has ridden 79 winners at Royal Ascot during his career, with his first one coming in 2008 on Colony for Sir Michael Stoute in the King George V Stakes.

He added, “Royal Ascot, for me it’s the highlight of the British racing season, and it’s probably the best race meeting in the world. Five days of very competitive races. It’s very hard to win there. I look forward to it every year. I would say it’s my favourite meeting and I’ve been very fortunate to be to have been a part of it for so long. 

“Riding winners at Ascot is very hard. It took me a few attempts to ride my first one and I’ve been lucky to ride for some of the biggest trainers in Britain and Ireland and I’m fortunate to have ridden a lot of winners there now, and really I’m always just looking forward to the next one and you don’t know if it’s definitely going to come, so hopefully we just try to keep ticking them off.”

Nick Smith, Director of Racing & Public Affairs for Ascot Racecourse:‘This year, we’re really proud to be launching a new initiative with our Ascot Racecourse Supports racing ambassador, Ryan Moore, and Retraining of Racehorses. For every race that Ryan Moore wins, Ascot Racecourse Supports will donate £5,000 to the worthy charity. We’ve worked with them on a lot of initiatives in the past, but this is going to be our flagship initiative, and we’re just hoping that Ryan rides loads of winners for them.”

Vicky Vine, Director of Fundraising, Marketing & Communications, RoR: “It’s hugely important for Retraining of Racehorses that Ascot has chosen to support RoR during Royal Ascot week. It’s going to make it a really exciting week for RoR and I know the whole of the team and all our supporters will be cheering Ryan on from wherever they’re watching.

“The money that’s being raised is incredibly important to us. This year, just to put it into context, we are going to be spending over £1 million on programs such as education for owners of former racehorses to help build that trust and bond between them and their horses, which is particularly important in that first step out of racing, but also for our Welfare Safety Net programs, such as our Vulnerable Horse Scheme. So the donation is incredibly important to us, and we will be backing Ryan all the way.”