Racehorse owner Nick Bradley raises £10,000 for coronavirus-related charities

Nick Bradley may be best known for fronting the syndicate whose white and black colours have been carried by many good horses but the well-known owner has been doing his bit off the track by raising much-needed funds for Covid-19-related charities.

On Virtual Grand National day alone, Bradley raised around £2,500 by offering a free share in a racehorse through an online sweepstake on the race.

The success of the sweepstake took Bradley by surprise initially, and, after running the sweepstake five or six times over at £10 per entry, he generated enough funds to make sizeable donation to charity as well as purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) for Ashcroft House Care Home in Leeds.

Nick Bradley: raised around £2,500 by offering a free share in a racehorse through an online sweepstakeCredit: Laura Green

Bradley explained: "On the day of the Virtual Grand National, it was around half one when I thought we normally do a sweepstake on the race, so let's do one online. So we did it, at ten pounds an entry, and we gave a share in a racehorse as the prize.

"The first sweepstake sold out in about 10 minutes and we actually did it five or six times over and managed to raise over two and a half grand. We rounded that up to three grand with money from the company. We donated it to the Marie Curie hospice and we bought more than 1,400 units of PPE from a London company that was importing from Hong Kong. We agreed that deal last week and they arrived at the care home [Ashcroft House Care Home in Leeds]."

Bradley has been following the coronavirus pandemic with particular interest and the money raised on the Virtual Grand National is not the only charitable donation his syndicate has made during the crisis.

The Equestrial Relief charity auction, which took place this month, raised more than £250,000, of which membership in the Nick Bradley Racing Club fetched top lot of £7,500.

Bradley added: "I've been trying to do my bit since about March 12 but not many people have been listening to me. It was just another way that I thought we could help people in what is probably the biggest event of our lifetime."

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