Ayr Racecourse RCA Community Award: what makes a winner?

Last November saw Ayr Racecourse beat strong competition to win the Racing Together Community Award at the RCA Showcase & Awards, held at Aintree Racecourse.

The racecourse’s long-standing partnership with Ayrshire Cancer Support highlighted how racing can really engage with the community, so too the benefits of having an extensive support network to generate awareness and funds, with over £65,000 raised so far. 

As part of the prize, Racing Together was very pleased to fund a promotional video highlighting the invaluable work done by Ayr in support of the charity, which can be viewed below. 

Following the launch of the video, Lindsey Smith, Sales and Marketing Manager for Ayr Racecourse said “We were absolutely delighted to win the award, really proud to do so and Ayrshire Cancer Support, our partner charity were equally thrilled!  One of our main objectives when we partnered with Ayrshire Cancer Support was to increase their profile and winning the award and the subsequent video has certainly allowed us to do just that. 

“We all had an amazing day shooting the video and hearing the positive impact the charity has had on so many people was humbling and clearly demonstrated the importance and value of having a community engagement programme. Many thanks to Racing Together and the RCA.”

Paul Swain, Head of Raceday Experience and Communications at the RCA said: “We are delighted to be able to share an in-depth review of Ayr Racecourse’s Showcase Award-winning partnership with Ayrshire Cancer Support. The collaboration between racecourse and charity is a wonderful example of how two major organisations within a community can benefit a broad section of their locality by combining skillsets, audiences and infrastructure. It is the definition of community engagement. 

“Our thanks to Racing Together for their continued support of the Showcase Awards and funding this video case study. We hope it demonstrates exactly why Ayr’s initiative was a hit with our judges and look forward seeing which racecourse will feature in next year’s edition.”

The awards, presented by the RCA in partnership with Great British Racing, Racing Together, the Racing Foundation and the Racing Post, celebrate best practice across Britain’s racecourses.

Applications for this year’s awards are still open and all the information can be found here on the Showcase Hub or by contacting Matthew Jones at Matthew.Jones@racecourseassociation.co.uk.