The perils of Racing Welfare marathon runner Racing Welfare has regularly benefited from the efforts of London Marathon runners in raising funds to aid their work in supporting Britain’s stud and stable
staff. The charity had eleven (11) intrepid runners lining up for this year’s gruelling 26 miles slog around the streets of the Capital. Sadly the eleven runners are now down to eight (8) due to a series of incidents worthy of an edition of Holby City. Joanne Lawless from Monmouthshire was an early
casualty, suffering a training injury followed by Jim Lawless the motivational speaker, amateur jockey and author of Taming Tigers, laid up with a mis-aligned pelvis. The final non-runner, Martin Gear, makes for even more horrific reading.

Martin works for Sir Michael Stoute at the Beech Hurst yard. He took up running a year ago and has been training hard for the last four (4) months for the London Marathon. His personal trainer expected him to run a time of Three (3) hours ten (10) minutes, putting him in the elite runner category.
However last week Martin received an horrific kick to the head whilst he was finishing up one of his horses, resulting in a fractured skull, a broken nose and an ensuing seven (7) hour operation in Adenbrookes hospital to remove loose chips of bone and fluid lying close to his brain plus additional
maxillo-facial surgery to straighten his nose. Surgeons at the hospital said Martin from Exning was very fortunate not to have sustained brain damage or sight loss as a result of the kick.

Richard Negus, Racing Welfare’s communications executive commented on Martin’s injury. “We are amazed by how high Martin’s spirits are considering how painful his injury must be. He is also absolutely gutted not to be able to line up for the marathon and he had raised nearly £2,000 for
us” Richard added “He has got a lot of support from Sir Michael who is keeping him on full pay at the moment and from his fiancée Nicole, who he marries in August. This does however highlight the
need for all stable staff to be registered with RIABS or to have suitable insurance, our Welfare officers are in contact with Martin if he does need our help during his recovery”.

Racing Welfare is hoping to get Martin back on the fund raising marathon trail by looking to enter him and Jim Lawless for the New York marathon in November. Cedric Burton OBE chief executive of Racing Welfare said “Martin’s terrible accident just shows how dangerous working in a racing yard
can be, he was running the marathon to help stable and stud staff who suffer from injury or hardship, its awful that he has become a statistic within the Three hundred (300) people who are injured each year in racing stables and studs”. We hope that British racing will help support both Martin and Jim to get to the New York marathon by adding to their sponsorship tally and help fund their transport costs”

If you would like to help support any of the Racing Welfare marathon runners please contact Richard Negus at rnegus@racingwelfare.co.uk or 01638 560763