A VIRTUAL Racing Welfare Yorkshire Open Day has helped raise over £37,000.

Due to current coronavirus guidelines this year’s event was held online giving people to see behind the scenes of 24 trainers online.

The day included everything from an overview of the training centres of Malton and Middleham to a celebrity Mr & Mrs game show featuring some of Yorkshire racing’s most popular faces.

The Linton Pet Dog Show once again was a popular feature of the day with Malton-based jockey Barry McHugh winning the ‘Dog most like it’s racing personality’ class with his Jack Russell Terrier Stanley.

Sophie Townsend of Linton Pet Shop, in Malton, said, “We are very proud to sponsor this year’s dog show at the Virtual Yorkshire Open Day.

“We have been supporters of Malton Open Day for the last four years and are always very impressed with the standard of entries. Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter.”

Mark Loades, Head of Fundraising at Racing Welfare, which supports people working in the industy, said: “The day really caught the public’s attention and by mid-afternoon on Sunday all the videos had over 40,000 views. Our Yorkshire Open Day web page was viewed over 6,800 times on the day alone. We’ve also seen an amazing amount of goodwill, with trainers and racecourses coming together, and the comments on social media have been fantastic. We’ve collected around £1,000 in voluntary donations when people registered and the total for the online auction, is now past £37,000.″

The auction runs until September 24 and can be viewed at www.jumblebee.co.uk/thegreatracingwelfareauction. All of the footage of the open day be found at www.racingwelfare.co.uk/yorkshireopenday