Racing: Nurse for the injured

WHAT more appropriate horse to grace this year's Injured Jockeys' Fund Christmas card than Night Nurse, painted beside Sea Pigeon and an anonymous donkey in a suitably wintry Yorkshire scene by Joy Hawken.

The Fund derives the major part of its income from Christmas card sales and this year it enabled them to obtain the use of six wheelchair-friendly flats in Newmarket.

Hawken, who retains the original painting, can all too easily empathise with the fund's cause having spent seven weeks flat on her back in hospital after being fired into the ground by the former David Gandolfo-trained chaser Welsh Oak, who is stabled with her.

Night Nurse, now 21, remains on one of the farms of his former trainer, Peter Easterby, while the 22-year-old Sea Pigeon is stabled seven miles from his former base at Great Habton and has a trust fund organised to cater for his needs.

Cards can be ordered at pounds 4 for a pack of 10, or a calendar featuring seven pictures by various artists for pounds 5, from: The Injured Jockeys' Co Ltd, 4a High Street, Welwyn, Herts, AL6 9HE.