Former Cheltenham Champion and Equine Ambassador for the Irish Horse Welfare Trust (IHWT) will parade this Tuesday at Cheltenham
Legendary Moscow Flyer – the Jessica Harrington trained winner of the Arkle Challenge Trophy and Queen Mother Champion chase, now serving as full time equine ambassador for the Irish Horse Welfare Trust (IHWT) -will once again visit Cheltenham Racing Festival. The famous hurdler will take his place in the parade ring at this year’s Festival with some of the greatest living racehorses, who have all been retrained as riding horses.
Moscow Flyer, or Moscow as he’s affectionately known at his home in the Irish Horse Welfare Centre in Wicklow, will represent the IHWT in a group of ten famous ex-racehorses who between them won sixteen races at the Festival. Among the other famous equines on show will be Brave Inca, and Master Oats. The parade is set to take place on Tuesday 16th March, before the first race of this year’s Cheltenham Racing Festival. All the horses on show have gone on to successfully adapt to new equine disciplines after their career in racing ended.
“It’s wonderful to see a racing legend like Moscow Flyer go onto have a successful career in another equestrian field, and so appropriate such a special horse has become the Irish Horse Welfare Trust’s equine ambassador”, said Sharon Newsome, founder and Manager of the Irish Horse Welfare Trust.
“We hope Moscow Flyers’ appearance at this year’s Cheltenham will highlight the Irish Horse Welfare’s programme of re-training and re-homing racehorses after their career on the track is over,” Sharon added, “In addition to our work with racehorses, our charity is working around the clock currently to deal with the massive increase of starving and neglected horses in Ireland, which with the recession has reached crisis point”.
Amongst the hundreds of horses the IHWT has helped, they recently co-ordinated a forty one horse rescue from a farm in Kilkenny where horses were starving and suffering from severe neglect. A successful prosecution was brought against the owner of these animals. Many of these horses are currently being re-homed by the Trust.
For more information about the Irish Horse Welfare Trust Visit www.ihwt.ie