Held for the last thirteen years and with continuous team involvement since 2004, the Horwich Festival of Racing (formerly known as the Horwich Carnival Races) are a day long series of running, orienteering and road cycling events held within Horwich Town Centre which uniquely is completely closed to traffic for the day in order for the races to be run in safety.

Races around the town centre circuit included youth cycle races and relay races, 5k road running and 5k road walking events, an adapted cycle ride, the National Unicycle Road Race, various categories of adult and veteran cycle races, a one-lap street race and a fun run.

As in all previous years the team had a major deployment regards this all day event, to provide standby rescue and first aid cover for the many races.

In total we had 23 Team Call Out members deployed around the course in our four Mountain Rescue Land Rover Ambulances and our Minibus / Crewbus Ambulance.

Our involvement was co-ordinated from our Incident Control Vehicle, directly linking in with the Race Officials and Race Marshalling Teams.

Throughout the day regards the various events, team members assisted with four casualties, see incident 59/2014 for details.

As the Races effectively seal off Horwich Town Centre, though emergency access is obviously available, as with previous years we have linked to NWAS (Manchester) EOC Parkway, who liaise regards any ‘domestic’ incidents they are called to within the closed area, where we may assist, being immediately on hand, or otherwise advise regards responding Emergency Ambulances as to the progress of races and emergency area access points.

Today’s Festival of Racing also saw the Horwich Carnival weekend once again being held on the same time as the race weekend.

At 12.00 the very popular Horwich Carnival Parade took place, featuring all the local Carnival Queens, a Pipe Band, African Dance and Drums Band, Local youth, church and other organisations (Some really great fun floats) the ‘Eden Bus,’ the Rotary Club, Horwich Prize Morris Men, Rivington Prize Ladies Morris Dancers, Cheerleaders, massed local motorbikes in convoy, including some wonderful trike bikes (All very enjoyable noisy!) and bringing up the rear our very own BM1 Land Rover Ambulance.

The Bolton Mountain Rescue Team is very happy to remain steadfastly associated with this annual fantastic ‘Festival of Racing,’and we would like to express our thanks to the organising committee for inviting us once again to be on hand in a very publicly visible way, to help at this unique and very entertaining local event.