UTTOXETER'S MP Andrew Griffiths is being joined by the towns secondary school, charities and businesses in supporting a charity race to bring state of the art breast cancer equipment to the area.
The Tory MP, pupils from Thomas Alleyne’s High School and The Uttoxeter Lions Club have all thrown their support behind the Shergar Run for Home to be held on Saturday, September 11.
The event has been organised by the Uttoxeter Friends of the Burton Breast Care Unit to raise vital funds for the facility at Queen’s Hospital, in Belvedere Road, Burton.
It is the culmination of the work of the group, which started as a small group of professionals from Uttoxeter raising money for breast cancer patients and it has become an effort involving the entire town.
The group is aiming to raise enough money to purchase equipment which enables reconstructive surgery to be undertaken in East Staffordshire, instead of patients having to travel to Selly Oak Hospital, in Birmingham.
Members have organised various fund-raising initiatives, such as a bucket collection at Uttoxeter Racecourse and non-uniform days at the school, but the largest initiative is the Shergar Run for Home.
The sponsored event sees groups of three or four people, ideally in fancy dress, are taken up to 100 miles away to an undisclosed location and they have to return to base without spending any money and using only their wit and initiative.
Given the town’s links with racing, and the event’s aim of seeing if competitiors can find their way home, it has been named after Shergar, the legendary horse which won the 1981 Epsom Derby by a record 10-length margin.
Two years later, the horse was stolen for ransom from the Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland by a gang of masked gunmen posing as police officers.
Despite a nationwide hunt, which at times involved clairvoyants, psychics and diviners, and negotaitions between the gang and representatives of Shergar’s majority owner, the Aga Khan, the horse — at the time expected to be the most valuable stud stallion in the world — was never found.
Various theories abound about what happened to the horse, the most popular being that he was stolen by members of the IRA who wanted to use the ransom money to buy arms, but killed when negotations stalled.
Mr Griffiths, who will be launching the event at Thomas Alleyne’s, said: “I think this is a fantastic initiative being undertaken by the town.
“One in eight women in Uttoxeter are affected by breast cancer and being able to provide cutting edge treatment locally would be an enormous help for many families in the area.
“It makes me proud how generous a town Uttoxeter is.” More information and application forms to take part in the event are available at www.runforhome.co.uk.
