TOTE CHAIRMAN’S THOUGHTS - MARKING PRIDE MONTH AT THE TOTE

Monday 14th June 2021

As I wrote in my second blog in February, we like to celebrate teamwork at the Tote.

In order to be a great team every individual must feel comfortable being themselves at work, which is why I want to use this blog to mark Pride month.

Pride is now a well-established part of the annual calendar, but it’s important to remember it has emerged from an era when those in the LGBT+ community were not able to be themselves for fear of stigma or worse.

Pride month is an opportunity for LGBT+ communities and allies to come together to celebrate the progress which has been made whilst recognising that there is still work to do. It is about all of us committing to play our role in addressing the issues which still exist through education and promoting an open dialogue around LGBT+ inclusion.

At the Tote we are marking Pride month both internally and externally.

We were enormously grateful to David Letts, Chair of the Racing With Pride network, who joined us last week for a session with the whole Tote team. We talked about the work going on across British racing to ensure everyone in the LGBT+ community feels welcome and the importance of allies in ensuring this happens.

As a company we want to visibly show our support for Pride and ensure all colleagues feel confident to be themselves within the Tote community.

At the end of the month, the Tote is using one of our races at Chester, in partnership with the British European Breeders Fund to show our support for Racing With Pride. The Tote and EBF support Racing With Pride Fillies Handicap will take place on Friday 25th June and be shown live on Sky Sports Racing with supporting material in the racecard and on social media.

Across British racing, organisations are visibly showing their support for Pride month and the Tote is proud to be part of this important work.

For anyone wanting to know more about Racing With Pride, there is information and resources on the Diversity in Racing page on Racing Together website here, and details of the Racing With Pride Network, including how to join on Facebook, follow on Twitter @RacingWithPride or contact at info@racingwithpride.co.uk.

For more information about the UK Tote Group please visit www.uktotegroup.com and follow us @UKToteGroup and @ToteRacing.