Cheltenham donate £10,000 of food after meeting is called off

Day two of The International meeting at Cheltenham today unfortunately had to be abandoned due to freezing overnight conditions making the ground unraceable.

With a crowd of circa 13,000 expected to have been in attendance, the racecourse was left with over £10,000 of perishable food. Instead of letting this go to waste, the food is now being donated to three food bank charities – Open Door Cheltenham, Tewksbury Prior and Help For Homeless.

Simon Hanna, Regional Director for Jockey Club Catering, commented: “It is always unfortunate when the weather forces us to abandon racing but we have arrangements in place to ensure that the food resources we were going to serve to racegoers today do not go to waste.

“The food will now be split between Open Door Cheltenham, Tewksbury Prior and Help For Homeless, which are all locally-based charities.

“We are very much at the heart of the local community and pleased to be able to help in this way to ensure no food is wasted, especially in the present economic climate and cost of living crisis, which is challenging for so many people.”

Iona White of Help For Homeless said: “Funnily enough I do actually work on the Tote at Cheltenham on racedays so if racing had gone ahead I would have been here taking customers’ bets!

“I also run a charity called Help For Homeless, which goes out on the streets four nights a week in Bristol, Bath, Yeovil and Taunton. We have a truck that goes out and feeds people and we also provide clothing as well.

“We are helping around 150-200 people a week – it’s rising at the moment as the weather gets worse.

“I will be distributing the food provided by Cheltenham in Taunton tomorrow. It is an absolutely amazing initiative by The Jockey Club – I hate wastage and nothing will go to waste that comes my way.”