THE horse and pony racing community are organising an auction which will aim to raise vital funds to cover the €40,000 remaining owed to insurers.

The sector has also set up a page for donations at gofundme.com/horse-and-pony-racing

Pony racing resumed at the famous Dingle Derby meeting last weekend but the sector still needs to pay off its insurance for the year following a deal that was struck last month.

Horse Racing Ireland provided €30,000 to the sector but that was only enough to cover the deposit and funds will need to be gathered in the coming weeks to pay the total amount in full.

“An auction is the only thing we could think of that we could do fairly quickly to come up with the money as soon as we can,” Gallagher said. “The feedback I’ve got already from people has been phenomenal. Everybody has come back and said they’ll give something and contact someone they know to help.

“We’re going to have a live auction and have it online on ponyracing.ie and hopefully then at a meeting in Borris on 10th and 11th of September, we’ll do a live auction as well. We’re basically looking for anything that would appeal to people for the auction - hotel breaks, golf breaks, racing tickets, signed jockey gear, racing memorabilia, stallion covers, yard visits.

Help out

“Joseph O’Brien has said he’ll help us out, a guy has got in touch to offer a stallion service, another person has offered 50 breaking sessions with yearlings and the Curragh have put up membership for the full season next year - all fantastic auction prizes. Shark Hanlon is hoping to organise a retired jockeys race to raise funds as well.”