Coronavirus forces cancellation of Property Race Day event at Ascot

The Property Race Day 2020 event, due to be held at Ascot in July, has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The event was due to be held at Ascot's meeting on Friday, July 10, the curtain-raiser to the track's Summer Mile fixture the following day.

Since its inception in 2006, the event raises approximately £250,000 annually for charities working with disadvantaged children. Land Aid, WellChild, Trusts for African Schools, Dusty Yak and Chernobyl Children in Need had been the five charities selected to be this year's beneficiaries.

While the meeting at Ascot is still scheduled to go ahead in July, organisers have reached the conclusion that holding the charity event would not be possible.

Property Race Day chairman David Erwin commented: "We just took a view that in the current market, discretionary spending for businesses will be very tricky, and for me to go and ask for possibly £3,000 a table when organisations might be furloughing staff or laying them off, felt offensive. Add to that the fact that we are unlikely to be able to hold it anyway with racing likely to be behind closed doors made it an easy call."

In a statement, Erwin has announced an initiative called The Foundation 500 in an attempt to ensure that adequate funding for the charities involved will be provided.

This initiative aims to find 500 individuals or businesses who will each make a single minimum contribution of £500 to at least make up the £250,000 shortfall which would have been expected to be raised at Ascot, with 20 per cent of the funds being donated to the NHS to help them continue the battle against the coronavirus.

Erwin commented: "The charities are panicking a little and are going through a tough time, but people's personal generosity at the moment is just unbelievable. Land Aid, one of the chosen charities, launched an emergency appeal for £1m four weeks ago and they have raised £700,000 in that time which is unreal.

"We literally launched the Foundation 500 initiative on Monday morning, and we already have 30 individual givers and four or five of our corporate backers have pledged to send the money for this year."

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