Richard Dunwoody to embark on his 1,000 Mile Challenge tonight
Former champion jockey Richard Dunwoody will start his 1,000 Mile Challenge tonight (Friday 29 May).
Richard aims to walk the same mile 1,000 consecutive times up and down the Bury Road in Newmarket within 1,000 hours.
And his last mile will be up the home straight of Newmarket racecourse on Darley July Cup day (10 July) at about 2.20pm.
The 1,000 Mile Challenge emulates a challenge Captain Robert Barclay Allardice undertook back in 1809.
Captain Barclay was bet 1,000 guineas he couldn’t walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. But he walked for 42 days and completed the challenge on 12 July 1809.
He lost three stone in the process and the challenge was hailed as “one of the greatest human feats ever attempted”.
Now 200 years later Richard Dunwoody will walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours — and bookmaker Paddy Power will re-wager the 1,000 guineas bet.
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Richard’s challenge starts tonight at about 11pm from the Bedford Lodge Hotel.
He will walk one mile an hour every single hour for 42 days and nights — with the maximum amount of sleep possible at any one time being about 80 minutes.
In April Richard did a 72-mile trial walk in 72 hours, which he said went “very well”.
Richard will be walking the 1,000 Mile Challenge from 29 May to 10 July, in aid of Alzheimer’s Society, Racing Welfare, SPARKS and Spinal Research.
You can follow his progress on Twitter (www.twitter.com/richarddunwoody), Facebook (Richard Dunwoody-Challenge) and via the website www.dunwoody1000mile.com
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A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.