Charity race event featuring hobby horses has now raised almost £200,000

Co-organised and co-hosted by Les Heyhoe and wife Lyn, the event at Thorngate Halls in Gosport attracted around 230 people.

The horse race evening was to raise money for Motiv8, who support young people into training and employment opportunities through work experience, traineeships, apprenticeships, volunteers, sessional and salaried jobs.

The charity builds trusting relationships and boosts skills and inner resilience with young people and their families in the Portsmouth, Havant, Fareham and Gosport areas.

Motiv8 is Les and Lyn’s supported charity for 2023, after they raised £16,000 last year for GAFIRS, the Gosport & Fareham Inshore Rescue Service.

First held in the 1980s, the horse racing evening raised a final net figure of £4,343.49 – taking the overall total to £199,000 since it was first held.

The event was attended by The Mayor of Fareham, Councillor Mike Ford JP, and Mayoress Anne Ford.

Motiv8 Trustees Tim Caley and Reinoud Noorduijn were also present along with special guests, Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioners Trevor Rafferty and Michael Atkinson.

Trevor and Michael are good friends of Lyn and Les and always travel from London to attend their social fundraising events.

Les, of Gosport, first began fundraising at the age of 16 in his home town of Dereham in Norfolk.

With the encouragement of the Wyndham Lions, he came up with the idea of collecting aluminium ring pulls from drink cans to be sold for scrap metal.

On joining the Royal Navy, Les encouraged everyone to get involved, going by the motto ‘Give Les a Ring’. As a result, he raised over £1m by the time he was 18.

Known locally as ‘The Man of Many Millions of Hampshire’ or, as he prefers, ‘Lil’Les Charity Man’, he is the quizmaster at several Gosport pubs.