THERE were some major donations to Irish Injured Jockeys during the Punchestown Festival.

As covered in last week’s edition, Betfair handed over £250,000 to be shared between the IIJ and Injured Jockeys Fund in Britain, the proceeds of the Rachael Blackmore ‘Serial Winners’ initiative.

Another €18,000 was raised by The Diddler Ball, staged in memory of Danielle Quinlan.

Paddy, Eilis, Wendy, Jonathan, Jesse and other members of the Quinlan family presented the cheque to Michael Higgins and Alisha McCormack of the IIJ,

The Monksfield Cheltenham Preview raised €14,755 and this was received by Ruby Walsh and Michael Higgins from Jane Mangan, David O’Regan, Brian Mullen and Karl Smith (Meath Hunt).

Chris Jones Jnr raised over €5,000 for the IIJ by competing in the London Marathon and Pimlico Racing kindly donated €2,380 to the charity, presented by Pimlico’s Tom Raine and Nathaniel Barnett.

It also wasn’t lost on the IIJ that the new champion jump jockey is one of the sport’s most injury-hit riders.