The Malta Racing Club is once again organising the Malta Leg of the 2012 Horse Racing Union Championship for trotters. It is the first leg of this year’s championship, which Malta won in 2010, and forms part of a seve-race horse meeting scheduled for today.

The first race will start at 2pm and includes a variety of activities for all the family to enjoy, plus a show of Maltese owned Ferrari cars, thanks to the Ferrari Malta club.

Dr Matthew Brincat, the club chairman said that “this annual event forms an integral part of the annual horse racing activities at the Club. This is the fourth time that the club is organising such an event, while in the coming months Maltese drivers will be participating abroad, most notably in Italy and France for the forthcoming legs.” He expressed his satisfaction in winning this prestigious honour in 2010 and hoped for a good start in this year’s edition.

Malta will be represented by veteran and popular driver Mr Raymond Clifton. Ray Clifton is nowadays considered as a legend for Maltese horse racing having won more than 2,000 races in a career spanning more than 50 years.

He originally started as a jockey in the late 1950s, having won major honours like the Mediterranean Derby most notably on one of the 60s horse racing favourite Waterloo Boy.

In the early 1970s Clifton started driving trotters and was most notably renowned for his successes on the most popular of all horses Isard Du Pont.

In the 1990s, Clifton also managed to win outside our shores on a number of occasions and was also voted the sports personality of the year.

Today, Clifton has a number of horses which he trains while also being an instructor at the Horse Racing Academy established by Kunsill Malti Għall-iSport in collaboration with Malta Racing Club.

The six countries participating at this year’s event are France, Italy, Malta, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.