Richard Farquhar has a new spring in his step having past the £100,000 fundraising milestone today (28 May) after walking 650 miles of his mammouth 3,000 mile challenge.
The 52-year-old is undertaking the walk to raise funds for Racing Welfare and Pancreatic Cancer UK.
By next April Richard will have walked an unbroken line around all 60 racecourses across Britain — from Newton Abbot in the south to Perth in the north, from Yarmouth in the east to Ffos Las in the west.
The walk coincides with a meeting at each racecourse and before the racing Richard walks a leg of the track itself accompanied by trainers, jockeys and his many other supporters.
At Salisbury he arrived in lashing rain, elsewhere on his travels he has been chased by cows, bitten by a Jack Russell and walked through blisters, back ache and swollen ankles.
“It’s extremely gratifying to have recorded our first £100,000. This sum is made up of hundreds and hundreds of individual donations, from those both at home following my progress and at the racecourses I have visited so far,” he said.
“There’s a long way to go but we are well and truly on our way to raising a remarkable amount of money for these two charities about which I care profoundly.”
Walking The Courses finishes at the Craven Meeting in Newmarket in April 2016, a meeting that Richard attended for 26 years with his father, Peter to whom the walk is dedicated.
Richard’s father died in 2012 from pancreatic cancer.
“We are delighted to hear that Richard has reached this milestone, and thank him so much for his superhuman efforts to help people affected by pancreatic cancer,” said Alex Ford of Pancreatic Cancer UK.
Chairman of Racing Welfare, Joey Newton, said the Walking The Courses Challenge “will allows us to progress with new and innovative projects to support the people that make the thrill and excitement of a day’s racing possible.”
Walking The Courses hopes to raise £1.4m to be shared between the two charities.
For more information visit: www.walkingthecourses.com
